Apple IIe User Manual

Page 28

Page 28 of 74

IIe
Printed: Tuesday, March 4, 2003 10:40:15 AM

? - TUTOR: PRODOS EXPLANATION
F - PRODOS FILER (UTILITIES)
C - DOS <-> PRODOS CONVERSION
S - DISPLAY SLOT ASSIGNMENTS
T - DISPLAY/SET TIME
B - APPLESOFT BASIC

PLEASE SELECT ONE OF THE ABOVE

Press B to select Applesoft BASIC.

You'll see this display:

PRODOS 1.0

TO RETURN TO MENU, TYPE

'RUN STARTUP'

AND PRESS RETURN.

]

This loads ProDOS (the Applesoft BASIC operating system) into memory and puts you into the
BASIC programming environment.

The square bracket near the bottom of the screen is called a prompt. It's called a prompt
because it prompts you for information.

The blinking square is a cursor.

The cursor shows you

where the characters you type will appear on the screen.

Why Do You Need a Disk to Load BASIC?

You don't really need to start up the ProDOS User's Disk to get into the BASIC programming
environment.

You could turn on the Apple IIe power without a disk in the disk drive, press

CONTROL-RESET to stop the disk drive, and start programming.

The problem is that you wouldn't

be able to save any of the programs you write, and you wouldn't be able to load previously
written programs from a disk into memory.

The reason is that while BASIC is built into ROM,

the operating system (which controls how information is saved on and retrieved from disks) is
not.

Starting up the ProDOS User's Disk loads the ProDOS operating system.

BASIC Vocabulary

In this section, you'll learn to use the following statements and commands:

PRINT:

Displays information on the screen so you can communicate with the person using your

program.

INPUT::

Gives you a way to ask the person using your program for information and use that

information in the program.

LET::

Defines a variable.