J.E.Lawrie                                                            HINTS-3.
                                                                         v.3  

Print Format
  The Z88 manual says nothing about  this  and  the  books  can  be  a  little
  confusing.  It concerns how figures will be presented in Basic.  The default
  format ( the way it is unless you change it!  )  is  &0000090A  If  this  is
  changed to &0002000A then all figures will be integers - no decimal places.

  If  &0002020A  is  used  you  will  get  two  decimal  places and successive
  numbers on new lines will have the decimal points in line e.g  98.6743  will
  be   98.67  and  25  will be  25.00 and  345.5672 will be  345.57   -   nice
  & tidy!   So, the third pair of figures after & is  the  number  of  decimal
  places - this is especially useful in any  financial programs of course.

  At the start of the Basic listing  insert    @%=&2020A  (leading  zeros  are
  ignored).  If you only want whole numbers put @%=&2000A .  You can try these
  out in Basic as direct commands (NOT in a listing) by entering  a  format  &
  then testing it out by typing  P.  followed by a figure to test the format.

  The last two figures are the number of spaces which  will  be  used  in  the
  printout  of  figures.   Taking  `0A'  as  in  the above - this equals 10 in
  hexadecimal, so the last figure will always be in the 10th place  from  your
  last printed character.

Error trapping
  Correct  error  trapping  in  Basic  is very important.  Every Basic listing
  should start with a line as follows -
     ON ERROR:dummy=INKEY(0):PROCerr:REPORT:P."in line ";ERL:END
  At, or near the end of the listing put -
     DEFPROCerr:CLOSE#0:@%=&2020A:VDU1,127,1,67,1,83:ENDPROC

  This will ensure 1) that when you ESCape  from  the  program,  or  an  error
  causes it to fail, all will be reset to the default values and 2) that if an
  "error loop" should occur,  which might need a soft  reset,  you  can  avoid
  this  by  pressing the INDEX key and then <>KILLing the instantiation in the
  suspended activities.

Printing from Basic (1)
  It is possible to get a printout of a Basic listing by typing L. and, before
  hitting  the ENTER key, type #+P   The printer must be ready for printing of
  course.  At the end, type #-P    One can also  put  an  instruction  in  the
  listing  to get a printout of what appears on the screen.  How it appears on
  paper depends on the way the program is constructed.  The line to insert  is
  -
              OSCLI("CLI #+P~E"):d=INKEY(0)        EXACTLY like that!

Leaving the Filer
  It  is  possible  to  leave  the  Filer  in  a number of ways - it is always
  tempting to press the INDEX key or []P or []B  ([] means square  key)  DON'T
  DO IT.  Always leave the Filer by pressing the ESCape key.

  When cataloguing the files always run to the end of the list.

  If you ignore  these  warnings  then  sooner  or  later  you  will  get  the
  "in  use" message when you try to move, erase or load one of the files.  The
  only way to eliminate this block is to do a Soft Reset.

                                                                           END

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