'SIMPLE' (was:Arrrgh! Micro$h*t again.../old basics)

From: Lawrence Wilkinson <ljw_at_formula1.demon.co.uk>
Date: Mon Mar 23 09:44:10 1998

In article <199803182019.UAA27450_at_irwell.zetnet.co.uk>,
lisard_at_zetnet.co.uk writes
>On 1998-03-17 classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu said to lisard_at_zetnet.co.uk
> :<the 8080 c.1977 which was a non-trivial self-contained interactive
> :<interpreter, in 256 bytes including space for your own UART drivers.
>
> :Simple yes, useful?
If you've only got 512B of RAM, or a 256B PROM, then yes :-)
>
>there have been a few tiny languages built over the years. there was
>SIMPLE (and can someone describle it here please?)
This is from memory, and is surely wrong in places. I am sure almost
all of A-Z did something:
A Accept a single keystroke to the 8-bit 'accumulator'
C<line> Remainder of line is a comment
D Decrement accumulator
E End
Gn Get variable n (n=0-9) to accumulator
I Increment accumulator
Jn Jump to the nth '*' in the program
Mx Compare (match) accumulator to character x
N Skip rest of line if last match was true
Pn Put accumulator to variable n
R Return from subroutine
Sn Jump to subroutine (nth '*')
T<line> Type remainder of line to console
U User function (user-supplied machine code)
Y Skip rest of line if last match was false

Hence:
C A pointless program
*TWould you like to play a game? (Y/N)
AMYYJ2
MyYJ2
TOh well, some other time
E
*TOK, but this is going to be a short game
J1

Punctuation characters #$/ etc. were used for editing. The main
limitation of the program editor was that you couldn't extend lines once
you'd entered them, but you could overtype or shorten them.

At one point Peter Gutmann was going to hide this inside 'hpack', I'm
not sure whether it ever made it in.
-- 
Lawrence Wilkinson                                  ljw_at_formula1.demon.co.uk
The GirlFrendo homepage:         http://www.formula1.demon.co.uk/girlfrendo/
"You've got the brains, or so you say, maybe you see things another way"-bis
Received on Mon Mar 23 1998 - 09:44:10 GMT

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