Talk:Applesoft BASIC

message: In the main article, a reference to "single-precision" floating point is made, combined with an 8 bit exponent.
What is meant by this?
Does it mean that the mantissa is 8 bits long, and the exponent is another 8 bits long?
I'd guess that the mantissa is normalized (with the series of bits shifted to the left, once for each time the exponent is diminished by one, until the leftmost bit is a '1' instead of a '0') but the main article leaves this completely to the imagination of the reader.  Is there any way the main article could be straightened out, and the ambiguity resolved?
Single precision floating point numbers are usually 32 bit while double precision are 64 bit. Unlike some other 6502 Microsoft written BASIC interpreters (eg OSI BASIC which uses 32 bit fp numbers), Applesoft uses 40 bit floating point numbers - 8 bit exponent, 1 bit sign and 31 bit mantissa (with implied leading '1' bit). I will have a look at the main page and see if I can improve it. --TheGiantHogweed 09:47, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Per WP:TENSE, the tense in this article as a technological historical item should be in the past tense (given that there is no new equipment that features it).  An edit-warring IP editor 75.162.179.246 is repeatedly restoring the text to the present tense having first changed it on the 14th November (currently at 6RR though not in 24 hours, but it is still a slow motion edit war).  
This editor is attempting to use the justification that [a few] other such articles are fully or partly in the present tense. I do not believe that another article in the wrong tense is justification for going against the MOS. The editor cites Phonograph cylinder and Wire recording as his justification.  Phonograph cylinder is written in the past tense apart from one present tense in the lede, "Phonograph cylinders are the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound".  Present tense would be acceptable for that statement as Phonograph cylinders [still] are the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound. Past tense here would imply that an earlier medium had been uncovered. As for Wire Recording, it is mostly in the past tense, but there are parts in the present. The article does require copy editing to make the tense consistent throughout (and past tense as it is historical, there being no wire recorders made today.
In addition, it seems to me that this editor has a long history of disruptive editing and edit warring elsewhere.  I also not that this editor lacks any consistency because although this editor is insisting that this article be put into the present tense, I note that the same editor has also changed the similarly historical article on Droid 4 from the present tense to the past tense. –LiveRail < Talk > 17:02, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Note: The above IP address editor was subsequently blocked for disruptive editing and edit warring of his continued changes to the tense of articles.  –LiveRail < Talk > 16:25, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tense in article 

message: "Atomic strings: A string is no longer an array of characters (as in Integer BASIC and C); it is instead a garbage-collected object (as in Scheme and Java). This allows for string arrays; DIM A$(10) resulted in a vector of eleven string variables numbered 0–10."
The second sentence is mostly irrelevant and misleading, as C also allows arrays of finite-length 'strings' (called 'char arrays'.  This would be 2-dimensional with one being the length and the other being how many of that finite-length object it could hold.  The writer seems to be having confusion over the difference between DIMension and variable-length strings.  These 2 features both came into play when moving to a newer BASIC.  73.3.211.0 (talk) 19:44, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: They weren't my sentences, but an explanation of strings in Integer BASIC may be helpful (or not, but I'll give it a shot). In Integer BASIC, string variables (simple variables, not arrays) required a DIM statement to declare how many characters they could hold. DIM B$(30) creates the single string variable B$ that can hold up to 30 characters. There could not be arrays of string variables in Integer BASIC. Applesoft differed from this in that the same statement in Applesoft would create an array B$ of string variables, numbered 0 to 30. I don't know if this really helps, but it couldn't hurt. 67.186.19.151 (talk) 11:09, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Atomic strings - misleading sentence 

message: The two snippets of Applesoft BASIC code in the article are nicely formatted and look great, and it seems like the standard "basic" language definition in SyntaxHighlight works quite well.  I was just drafting a slightly longer passage of code for possible inclusion, and the only thing I noticed that it wasn't handling properly was REM statements.  Does anyone know of any other challenges with using the standard "basic" language as a stand-in for true Applesoft BASIC?
Also, I see Pygments says that "if a lexer for your favorite language is missing in the Pygments package, you can easily write your own and extend Pygments."  Might someone be willing/able to craft a variant lexer for Applesoft BASIC?  (It seems like the standard "basic" is already quite close.)  If not, I'm certainly willing to see what I can figure it out, though I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with the process.  Thanks!  ╠╣uw [talk] 15:02, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Syntax highlighting