11 ms·

Also forgot depending on the BASIC that some BASICs only allowed 2 letter variables. For those not familiar with these systems, the way you coped was usually b

Also forgot depending on the BASIC that some BASICs only allowed 2 letter variables. For those not familiar with these systems, the way you coped was usually by keeping a "data dictionary" on a sheet of paper. On a sheet of paper you'd have... $AA = Name of foo $AB = Selected color of baz $AC = Blah blah $AD = Length of qux etc. It wasn't TOO bad. Until you lost the damn thing, or had to work on somebody else's code and you didn't have the data dictionary. You could keep the data dictionary in the code's comments, but on systems with just a few kilobytes of RAM (ie, the systems that restricted you to 2-char identifiers) this was not always a feasible luxury. Luckily, I managed not to have to deal with this personally. All the BASIC environments I used as a kid in the 80s did not have this limitation. But I heard horror stories.

Angostura 8y ago
Couldn't you pop those in REM statements (assuming you had RAM to burn)?
- JohnBooty 8y ago
  Yes, but the systems with two-char identifiers were also the ones with the most extreme RAM restrictions. Some commercial Apple II software was actually written in BASIC, and you could read the code. It was usually fairly liberally commented. Example code in magazines was liberally commented as well. Folks didn't seem to comment individual lines of code, but tended to "name" and sometimes describe their GOSUB (subroutine) blocks. But, Applesoft basic didn't force you to use two character variable names. Because most Apple II's on the market had a luxurious 64KB or 128KB of RAM, and none had less than 48KB. I think it was a different story on systems with 4KB or perhaps 16KB of RAM. On those systems I bet you were often squeezing out every byte. I also think some older languages (COBOL?) often had restrictions like this.

11 ms·

Also forgot depending on the BASIC that some BASICs only allowed 2 letter variables. For those not familiar with these systems, the way you coped was usually b

by JohnBooty 8y ago

Angostura 8y ago
Couldn't you pop those in REM statements (assuming you had RAM to burn)?
- JohnBooty 8y ago
  Yes, but the systems with two-char identifiers were also the ones with the most extreme RAM restrictions. Some commercial Apple II software was actually written in BASIC, and you could read the code. It was usually fairly liberally commented. Example code in magazines was liberally commented as well. Folks didn't seem to comment individual lines of code, but tended to "name" and sometimes describe their GOSUB (subroutine) blocks. But, Applesoft basic didn't force you to use two character variable names. Because most Apple II's on the market had a luxurious 64KB or 128KB of RAM, and none had less than 48KB. I think it was a different story on systems with 4KB or perhaps 16KB of RAM. On those systems I bet you were often squeezing out every byte. I also think some older languages (COBOL?) often had restrictions like this.