Cool AppleSoft BASIC trick I never thought of before

From: Vintage Computer GAWD! <foo_at_siconic.com>
Date: Thu May 18 12:01:23 2000

On Thu, 18 May 2000, Eric J. Korpela wrote:

> I don't think this is particularly a problem on the Apple ][ series. IIRC,
> all I/O is CPU intensive, so giving up the CPU during I/O will likely cause
> the I/O to fail. Am I getting old? The details of the Disk ][ interface
> are only faintly registering on my brain. Wasn't the input a bit at a time
> with a software wait between bits, or am I confusing that with the tape
> interface with its half-hardware/half-software 1-bit ADC?

Woz basically left a lot to software. He figured if anything could be
done in software then thjere was no need to implement it in hardware. As
such, the disk reads & writes are very CPU intensive.

> Of course, none of this is a concern with cooperative multitasking of BASIC
> programs but if someone implements an interupt generator on a ][ for
> multitasking purposes, it could become a concern.

Very much so. In fact it would turn this whole exercise into work, which
is not fun.
Received on Thu May 18 2000 - 12:01:23 BST