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BSAVE and BLOAD are commands in many varieties of the BASIC programming language. BSAVE copies RAM to a binary file, and BLOAD copies the contents of the file to RAM. [1] The term "BSAVE image" could mean any of various raw image formats of video display controllers, or more generally any file containing the raw contents of a section of memory.
Some platforms provided a BRUN command that, after loading the file into memory, would immediately attempt to execute it as machine code.
There is no file compression, and therefore these files load very quickly and without much programming when displayed in native mode.
BSAVE files were in general use as a file format when the IBM PC was introduced. It was also in general use on the Apple II in the same time period. Although the commands were available on the Commodore PET line, they were removed from the later (and more popular) Commodore 64 and VIC-20 computers. In 1985 the Commodore 128 was released with Commodore BASIC version 6.9 which restored the BSAVE and BLOAD commands.
Some versions of BASIC for home computers in the late 1970s and early 1980s include the command BSAVE
(for "Binary Save") and the complementary BLOAD
("Binary Load"). Using the BSAVE command, a block of memory at a given address with a specified length can be written to disk as a file. [1] This file can then be reloaded into memory via BLOAD. [2]
Microsoft produced the BASIC interpreters that were bundled with the Apple II (1977), Commodore PET (1977), and IBM PC (1981) which included BSAVE and BLOAD.
A BSAVE command is also part of ASCII's MSX-DOS2 Tools for MSX-DOS version 2. [3]
On the Color Computer's ColorBASIC, those were named SAVEM and LOADM instead, with the M referring to machine code, showing that the primary intent was to load programs rather than data; the use of the B prefix to refer to binary indicates a broader view of the possible uses of the command. ColorBASIC uses a different format than GWBASIC. LOADM supports multipart content to be loaded in different places in RAM, which some programs do use, even though SAVEM supports only saving one part. The cassette equivalents were called CLOADM and CSAVEM. In ColorBASIC, the BRUN command is called EXEC instead.
The BSAVED format is a device-dependent raster image format; the file header sometimes stores information about the display hardware address, and the size of the graphics data. The graphics data follows the header directly and is stored as raw data in the format of the native adapter's addressable memory. No additional information, such as screen resolution, color depth and palette information, bit planes and so on, is stored.
Applesoft BASIC is a dialect of Microsoft BASIC, developed by Marc McDonald and Ric Weiland, supplied with the Apple II series of computers. It supersedes Integer BASIC and is the BASIC in ROM in all Apple II series computers after the original Apple II model. It is also referred to as FP BASIC because of the Apple DOS command used to invoke it, instead of INT
for Integer BASIC.
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GW-BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC programming language developed by Microsoft from IBM BASICA. Functionally identical to BASICA, its BASIC interpreter is a fully self-contained executable and does not need the Cassette BASIC ROM found in the original IBM PC. It was bundled with MS-DOS operating systems on IBM PC compatibles by Microsoft.
The Commodore 128, also known as the C128, C-128, C= 128, is the last 8-bit home computer that was commercially released by Commodore Business Machines (CBM). Introduced in January 1985 at the CES in Las Vegas, it appeared three years after its predecessor, the bestselling Commodore 64.
The Commodore PET is a line of personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International. A single all-in-one case combines a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, Commodore BASIC in read-only memory, keyboard, computer monitor, and in early models a cassette deck.
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Commodore BASIC, also known as PET BASIC or CBM-BASIC, is the dialect of the BASIC programming language used in Commodore International's 8-bit home computer line, stretching from the PET of 1977 to the C128 of 1985.
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CodeView is a standalone debugger created by David Norris at Microsoft in 1985 as part of its development toolset. It originally shipped with Microsoft C 4.0 and later. It also shipped with Visual Basic for MS-DOS, Microsoft BASIC PDS, and a number of other Microsoft language products. It was one of the first debuggers on the DOS platform that was full-screen oriented, rather than line-oriented.
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MBASIC is the Microsoft BASIC implementation of BASIC for the CP/M operating system. MBASIC is a descendant of the original Altair BASIC interpreters that were among Microsoft's first products. MBASIC was one of the two versions of BASIC bundled with the Osborne 1 computer. The name "MBASIC" is derived from the disk file name MBASIC.COM of the BASIC interpreter.
In computing, indexed color is a technique to manage digital images' colors in a limited fashion, in order to save computer memory and file storage, while speeding up display refresh and file transfers. It is a form of vector quantization compression.
PC Paintbrush is graphics editing software created by the ZSoft Corporation in 1984 for computers running the MS-DOS operating system.
MSX-DOS is a discontinued disk operating system developed by Microsoft for the 8-bit home computer standard MSX, and is a cross between MS-DOS 1.25 and CP/M-80 2.
PCPaint was the first IBM PC-based mouse-driven GUI paint program. It was developed by John Bridges and Doug Wolfgram. It was later developed into Pictor Paint.
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The IBM Personal Computer Basic, commonly shortened to IBM BASIC, is a programming language first released by IBM with the IBM Personal Computer, Model 5150 in 1981. IBM released four different versions of the Microsoft BASIC interpreter, licensed from Microsoft for the PC and PCjr. They are known as Cassette BASIC, Disk BASIC, Advanced BASIC (BASICA), and Cartridge BASIC. Versions of Disk BASIC and Advanced BASIC were included with IBM PC DOS up to PC DOS 4. In addition to the features of an ANSI standard BASIC, the IBM versions offered support for the graphics and sound hardware of the IBM PC line. Source code could be typed in with a full-screen editor, and very limited facilities were provided for rudimentary program debugging. IBM also released a version of the Microsoft BASIC compiler for the PC, concurrently with the release of PC DOS 1.10 in 1982.
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