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TSC BASIC for SWTPc 6800
  by Bill Degnan - 05/09/2011 18:34
It took more than three hours entering in almost 4Kb worth of 2-digit HEX
instructions into my teletype, and a good 20 minutes or so to punch a tape,
but I was successfully able to save TSC BASIC on my SWPTc 6800 to
papertape. And the freakin thing actually worked the first time. The
documentation for TSC BASIC told me how to modify the program for my
system, etc. Saving me a lot of debugging time.

There is a write up about TSC BASIC in the January 1978 Kilobaud (comparing
4 6800 CPU BASICs), and fortunately I found a copy of the papertape program
here:
http://www.swtpc.com/mho...asic/TSC_MicroBasic.htm
I downloaded the papertape program as a text file and then parsed the data
in MS Excel. This way I could separate the data from the checksum at the
end of each line of papertape, and to see the address value.

There is a point when entering in that much data that you kind of become
one with the machine. I was entering instructions in synch with the
teletype output of the memory values, etc. Kind of crazy I guess. Kind of
Zen too.

I will be brining this to VCF East as part of my exhibit.

A Tale of Four BASICs - Which one for your 6800? - Good article comparing TSC BASIC with three others.


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