Learn To Walk Before You RUN We receive many letters from new Commodore owners portion and press return to enter the new line in memory. who want to lype in program listings from RUN and need 8. Be sure to save the program to disk fairly often during help in getting started. To answer many of the questions the typing process. Otherwise, you could lose all your novice users have, we present the following guidelines. work if a power glitch wipes out your computer's memory. 1. First, keep in mind that as a beginner you should enter To save a partial or complete Basic program listing, type: only short Basic programs. Avoid machine language list SAVE "NAMK",H ings and lengthy Basic programs until you gel the hang of what you're doing, 2. To help you catch mistakes In typing In listings, we publish two checksum programs each month, called 64 Perfect Typist and 128 Perfect Typist. (Follow the direc tions in How To Type HUN Listings, elsewhere in this issue.) 3. If you intend to save the program you're typing in on a brand new disk, you must format that disk. To do this, insert the disk in your drive and type: In 128 mode on a C-128, you can press F5, type in NAMK and press the return key. Here, NAMfcl is the filename you wan) the program to have, not the disk name you used when formatting. Each time you save a revised program to the same disk, you must change its filename, or a disk error will occur, even if only one character is changed. An easy way to vary the filename is by adding version numbers to the end of the basic name (Program. I and Program.2, for example). The numbers will also tell you which version OPEN15.8.15 is the latest. PRINT*! f>,"NO:NAMU,#lT 9. [f you wish to erase (scratch) unwanted programs from The ## is a two-character identifier that can be any a disk, type: combination of letters or digits. NAME can be any tide for die disk that you choose, as long as it's 16 characters OPEN15,S,15 or less. After entering the above lines, wait for a few minutes C1.OSK.15 while the disk spins inside the drive. When the disk stops, the formatting is done. Then type: PRINTS ]5."SIJ; file name" In 128 mode on a C-128, you can type: SCRATCH "NAMiT He sure not to erase the final version.' CLOSHir. In 128 mode on a C-128, you can shorten this procedure by typing: 10. Always save the final version of a program to two disks, so you have a backup copy in case one of the disks gets damaged. When saving to two different disks, you can use HtADF.R "NAMfc.##" [he same program name in each case. Caution: The formatting process erases any material already on the disk, so if you're formatting u used disk, make sure it doesn't contain any programs you want to 11. To view a complete list olihe filenames cm a disk (i.e., rend the disk directory), type: keep. See item 11 below, on reading the disk directory, if LOAD *S".8 you need to find out what's on the disk. LIST 4. Before you start typing in a program listing, your In 128 modeona(M28, you can just press F3. computer's memory- needs to be empty. To make sure it is, turn the computer off, wait a few seconds, and turn it 12. When you know what program you waul to load, next on again. the disk directory, including punctuation, special charac 5. As you type in the listing, remember to press the return key after each line. The return enters die line into make sure you know exurtly how its filename is spelled in ters and spaces. A mistake in the filename will keep the 6. If you want to review what you've entered, type LIST and press the return key; all the lines you've entered will load from working. If the disk directory is still on the screen when you enter die Load command, you can rcier to that for the spelling. If the directory will be gone from the screen by the time down die control key, and on the C-128 by pressing the no scroll key. To view certain Specific lines, type LIST, of the filename for reference. Once you're sure of the filename, load the program by typing: memory. scroil by. You can slow die scrolling on die C-64 by holding followed by the line numbers you want; then press the return key. For example, LIST 10-50 displays lines 10 through 50, and LIST 20 displays only line 20. 7. If you find an error in a line, delete the incorrect characters with the insert-delete key, then retype that you enter the Load command, JOI down the exaci spelling LOAD "NAMK".H < press n-tutn> In 128 mode on a C-128, you can just press F2, type in the filename and press the return key. 13. After you've loaded die program, enter RUN to use it. â– Al'KII. l'JSH -RUN 79