NEWS

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brassica 1.0.2 (2022-10-24)

• Width of the virtual BASIC terminal is now one character less than that of the parent terminal within which it is running. This is to avoid the blank lines inserted by some terminals after printing against the right margin.
• TAB function does nothing when the cursor is already beyond the requested position (as per Altair BASIC, 1975). Previously, a new line was begun and the cursor repositioned on that (as per Microsoft BASIC, 1979).
• STR$ function output has a leading space when its argument is non-negative (as per Altair BASIC, 1975). Previously, there was no space.
• Within PRINT statements, semicolons are implied between strings and ensuing non-string operators (as per Altair BASIC, 1975). Previously, this was not the case (as per Commodore BASIC, 1977), which always results in an error.
• PRINT and STR$ use '.' as the decimal mark, irrespective of locale (other marks being incompatible with INPUT, READ, and VAL).
• POS, SYST, and TTW functions allow 0 as their argument (as well as 1).
• TAND parsed as T AND (instead of TAN D, which is always a syntax error).
• GOR parsed as G OR (instead of GO R, which is always a syntax error).
• FOR parsed as F OR, except at the very beginning of a statement (FOR).
• TOR parsed as T OR, except within FOR - TO statements (TO R).
• Parentheses remain necessary to parse XOR as (X) OR.
• Bug fix: VAL function wasn't ignoring whitespace.
• Bug fix: material in print buffer wasn't always output at the end of a run.
• Bug fix: the run-state wasn't being fully reset when a program was rerun without reloading after the previous run was interrupted by the user.
• Added 'Even Wins', 'Four in a Row', 'Guess-It', 'Hexapawn', and 'Not One' to the bundled BASIC listings.
• Vignette and manual updated.

brassica 1.0.1 (2022-09-12)

• IF - THEN statements allow an optional ELSE clause.
• RND(X) returns a new variate for any X > 0 (no longer insists X = 1).
• RND(X) seeds the pseudorandom number generator with INT(X) when X < 0.
• MOD and \ operators implemented (from extended Altair BASIC, 1975).
• DATA and REM statements are checked at load time (for NotRun() purposes).
• NotRun() utility uses pretty = TRUE by default.
• Tweaked life.bas to prompt for continuation at generations 20 and 50.
• Added 'Animal' and 'Hammurabi' to the bundled BASIC listings.
• BASIC manual (vignette) and package manual both updated.