File Moves And Translations For The Atari

I have an Atari 800XL. I have two questions. First, is it possible to develop a program that will print an untokenized BASIC program to a printer? Also, could you make a translator program that will convert an ASCII file to a BASIC program that can be run?

Howard S. Bacon

In response to your first question, it is certainly possible to write a program to print any ASCII text file to the printer, including an untokenized BASIC program. But there's an easier way. From the DOS 2.0 or 2.5 menu, choose the DUPLICATE FILE option. Then, when you are asked for the source and destination, give the file-name as the source and the printer device name as the destination. Here's an example:

D:TESTFILE,P:

Another alternative is to load the untokenized program into a word processor and print it out from there.

To answer your second question, you can convert an untokenized BASIC program into one that will run simply by using the ENTER command. An example:

ENTER"D:TESTFILE"

To convert a program in memory into an untokenized disk file, use the LIST command. Example:

LIST"D:TESTFILE"

With these two commands, you can use your favorite word processor as a BASIC text editor.