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Rev

Perfect thanks. Some of the ZX design reasons do not make logical sense to me however the answer is fully comprehensive enough for me.

AndyF
– AndyF

2020-01-14 13:00:35 +00:00
Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 13:00
1

I think many MS versions of basic use the high byte of the line number to distinguish immediate mode (255 == immediate mode), limiting line numbers to 0xFEFF (64279).

supercat
– supercat

2020-01-15 21:19:38 +00:00
Commented Jan 15, 2020 at 21:19
2

Correct but incomplete. It doesn't explain Commodore 64 BASIC (0 to 63999), or GW-BASIC (0 to 65529) for example.

Selcuk
– Selcuk

2020-01-16 01:11:15 +00:00
Commented Jan 16, 2020 at 1:11
2

"No one will ever write a 10,000 line program."

bishop
– bishop

2020-01-16 17:24:18 +00:00
Commented Jan 16, 2020 at 17:24
To answer @Selcuk, supercat has the right idea. GW BASIC's limit of 65529 was the same as several other BASICs Microsoft created, such as for the TRS-80 line of computers. The reason was that lines 65530 to 65535 were "reserved for system use." For example, the TRS-80 Model I Level 2 BASIC Language Reference states that "65535 is used internally to store a line entered directly without a line number."

hackerb9
– hackerb9

2022-08-24 21:11:03 +00:00
Commented Aug 24, 2022 at 21:11

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