sct@lanl-a.UUCP (03/23/84)
Subject: COMAL vs. Simon's Basic Newsgroups: net.micro.cbm I just received a flyer on COMAL for the C64. It appears to be a great replacement for C64 Basic but is it that much better than Simon's Basic? The disk version of COMAL (ver 0.14) at $19.95 leaves 10K of memory available for programming. The ver. 2.0 cartridge which is due out this summer from Commodore will provide 30K available memory but will cost "under $100" (read $99.99?). Any comments out there in net land on the pros and cons of each? Any comparisons between the two. Please post any responses as I'm sure others are interested.
porter@inuxd.UUCP (J Porter) (03/24/84)
Off the top of my head (ouch) here are a few pros and cons: SIMONS' BASIC (SB) is an extension of the Microsoft BASIC that is built into the 64. Thus it is upward compatable. COMAL is not. COMAL (disk version) is free and in the public domain. If the guys in MadCity (Madison, WI home of the COMAL users group) had offered to make copies for virtually nothing, the demand on them would be horrendous. They would be copying disks 24 hours/day and probably wear out a drive or two. They did the right thing by putting it in the public domain, and let it distribute itself. COMAL has LOGO commands built in. SB does not. SB has music and graphics that operate in the background. COMAL does not. Both have named produres and structured programming constructs. SB doesn't have a CASE statement. COMAL does. SB doesn't assume you are using a disk. COMAL does. Variables in COMAL are more than two characters. Not in SB. COMAL appears to have faster integer arithmetic. Not sure about SB. SB is available in Cartridge now. COMAL isn't. Real programmers don't use SB. But I like SB anyways. Jeff Porter (inuxd!porter) AT&T Consumer Products Indianapolis PS: As of the end of this month, I will no longer be working for AT&T Consumer Products. Starting April 2, I will be workinng for Commodore Computer in West Chester, PA!!! I guess you could say that I have gone pro. They are not on the net yet, but that may change if they are going to develop a Z8000 UNIX PC. I'm going ot miss the net, and I hope to keep in touch with some of you via USNAIL. My new business address will be: Jeffrey S. Porter Commodore Semiconductor Systems 1200 Wilson Dr. West Chester, PA 19380 Keep smiling: :-)
miller@uiucdcs.UUCP (miller ) (03/25/84)
#R:lanl-a:-396100:uiucdcs:36100063:000:82 uiucdcs!miller Mar 24 21:39:00 1984 Goodbye Jeff. Thanks for all of your contributions. A. Ray Miller Univ Illinois
grass@uiuccsb.UUCP (03/26/84)
#R:lanl-a:-396100:uiuccsb:16800010:000:1471 uiuccsb!grass Mar 25 11:20:00 1984 I have been using Simon's Basic a little now, and I think its claims of having "structured programming" constructs are pretty overblown. Examples: 1) IF-THEN-ELSE takes the form IF ... THEN <statement> ELSE <statement> where statement usually ends up being a goto. This is structured? 2) Named subroutines....BUT NO PARAMETERS! The structuring capabilities of this language do not seem very different from that of BASIC to me. Simon's basic offers some editing tools, but there are some real caveats there: 1) Autonumbering and renumbering is nice, but the renumbering does NOT renumber line numbers occuring in GOTOs, GOSUBs ,etc. so you will need to search for those and correct them by hand. 2) The program MERGE facility doesn't know about line numbers and will leave you with duplicate numberings and a REAL MESS if you merge two programs that use the same line numbers. What is NICE about SIMON'S BASIC is the added string handling routines and graphic routines. But, BASIC is BASIC all the same. My advice: take a good look at the manual and the example programs to see if this is what you want. If it is JUST the added graphics/ sound stuff you want, you might consider the C-64 expander cartridge that just came out. This adds about 11 such primitives to the standard C-64 BASIC. Re: COMAL.. I have that too, I haven't used it much because 10k availible space seems pretty skimpy to me. Simon's BASIC leaves you over 30k. - Judy Grass