Source code for BASIC

From: Bill Sudbrink <bill_at_chipware.com>
Date: Wed Feb 16 15:08:00 2000

Looking at the tape, I see that the words "END OF FILE BAS65.PTP"
are punched at the end of the tape in sort of pseudo dot-matrix
characters. Does the "PTP" extension tell us anything? Looking at
the start of the tape:
"MICRO-SOFT BAS65.PTP [2601,1260] 29-JUL-77 15:27:58"

Looking through the first few feet of "real data"...

No high bits, the first few bytes are:
00111011 x3b ';' (was hoping for the start of an assembly comment)
00110010 x32 '2' (nope, looks like some sort of hex...)
00110000 x30 '0'
01000001 x41 'A'
00110000 x30 '0'
00110000 x30 '0'
00110000 x30 '0'
00110011 x33 '3'
00111001 x39 '9'
01000001 x41 'A'



> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
> [mailto:owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Tony Duell
> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2000 2:12 PM
> To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: Source code for BASIC
>
>
> >
> > I just acquired Microsoft 8K basic in ROM for OSI on paper
> > tape. I currently have no facility to read it, so I don't
> > know if it is source or object. The tape seems to be in
>
> Read the first few characters by hand -- it's most likely to be either
> binary or ascii. Put the tape so that the row of small holes is nearer
> the bottom, then the top hole is the MSB. Each column of 8 (data) holes
> is a character, a hole is a 1, no hole is a space.
>
> If the top (bit 7) hole is used at all, then either it's a text tape with
> parity (in which case the number of holes in a column will always be
> either odd or even), or it's a binary tape
>
> If only the bottom 7 holes are used, then it's probably a text encoding,
> but this doesn't mean it's source code. It could well be (and I suspect
> it is) an Intel-hex object tape. But reading a few characters
> will tell you.
>
> -tony
>
Received on Wed Feb 16 2000 - 15:08:00 GMT