Subj : Re: Dartmouth BASIC to C
To   : comp.programming
From : John Smith
Date : Sun Aug 07 2005 03:13 pm

spinoza1111@yahoo.com wrote:
> Looks great, with a minor cavil.
> 
> You simulate Dartmouth Basic's READ/DATA facility which would give a
> system error message if there was not enough DATA to READ in the pool
> of DATA.

 From page 6 of the manual:

"After commpleting the computation for the second set of right hand 
sides and printing the answers, the computer will give the last values, 
4 and -7, to the variable B1 and B2, compute and print the third set of 
answers, and then stop, because there is no more data when the READ 
statement 30 is encountered for the fourth time."

and page 27:

"Each time a READ statement is encountered anywhere in the program, the 
data block supplies the next available number or numbers. If the data 
block runs out of data, with a READ statement still asking for more, the 
program is assumed to be done."

My understanding of this is that the result of a READ after data are 
exhausted is normal termination, not an error. I don't remember whether 
this was the case with later flavors of BASIC, for example, the MS 
Basics. I'll have to trot out my copy of qBasic and give it a try.

JS

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