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Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
# 6. Graphics
Everything in this chapter needs the SDL build and a graphics device. Without one each
verb refuses by name:
Execute every documented example as a test docs/ and README.md carry 85 fenced blocks. Every one was checked by hand exactly once, when it was written, which is not a standard that survives a changing interpreter -- and four were already wrong: two transcripts showing a leading space PRINT does not emit, akbasic_TextSink in README.md missing the two members it had grown hours earlier, and FILTER's refusal quoted with wording the code does not use. tests/docs_examples.sh reads a fence-tag vocabulary and runs what it finds. BASIC programs and transcripts run and are byte-compared against an `output` block; C snippets compile with -fsyntax-only against the real include path, which CMake writes out because it is transitive through akerror, akstdlib and akgl; shell blocks run in a sandbox. Anything that would reconfigure the build tree, hit the network or re-enter the suite is tagged norun with the reason in MAINTENANCE.md, and the two cmake blocks stay hand-maintained by decision. An untagged block is a failure rather than a default, and the pass line reports what it executed by kind. Both exist because the way a harness like this dies is by quietly matching nothing and passing -- which it duly did on the first CTest run, where a generator expression evaluating to nothing still contributed an empty argument that the script read as a filename. The count is what caught it. The excerpt check earns its own mention: a block tagged `c excerpt=include/akbasic/sink.h` must still appear in that header, comments and whitespace ignored. Compiling it would only redefine the type, so a compile check could not have found the stale struct, and did not. Registered as the CTest case docs_examples in both configurations. Fixing the four wrong examples turned up two interpreter defects, fixed in the previous commit and recorded in TODO.md section 8. MAINTENANCE.md is new: the fence-tag reference, what to do when the case fails, and the conventions that until now only existed inside source comments -- the three test lists and how two of them invert "passed", the sorted verb table, that a golden file is never edited to suit this interpreter, and that a fix gets mutation-checked with a file copy rather than git checkout. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 22:41:36 -04:00
```basic requires=noakgl
10 DRAW 1, 0, 0 TO 100, 100
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
```
Execute every documented example as a test docs/ and README.md carry 85 fenced blocks. Every one was checked by hand exactly once, when it was written, which is not a standard that survives a changing interpreter -- and four were already wrong: two transcripts showing a leading space PRINT does not emit, akbasic_TextSink in README.md missing the two members it had grown hours earlier, and FILTER's refusal quoted with wording the code does not use. tests/docs_examples.sh reads a fence-tag vocabulary and runs what it finds. BASIC programs and transcripts run and are byte-compared against an `output` block; C snippets compile with -fsyntax-only against the real include path, which CMake writes out because it is transitive through akerror, akstdlib and akgl; shell blocks run in a sandbox. Anything that would reconfigure the build tree, hit the network or re-enter the suite is tagged norun with the reason in MAINTENANCE.md, and the two cmake blocks stay hand-maintained by decision. An untagged block is a failure rather than a default, and the pass line reports what it executed by kind. Both exist because the way a harness like this dies is by quietly matching nothing and passing -- which it duly did on the first CTest run, where a generator expression evaluating to nothing still contributed an empty argument that the script read as a filename. The count is what caught it. The excerpt check earns its own mention: a block tagged `c excerpt=include/akbasic/sink.h` must still appear in that header, comments and whitespace ignored. Compiling it would only redefine the type, so a compile check could not have found the stale struct, and did not. Registered as the CTest case docs_examples in both configurations. Fixing the four wrong examples turned up two interpreter defects, fixed in the previous commit and recorded in TODO.md section 8. MAINTENANCE.md is new: the fence-tag reference, what to do when the case fails, and the conventions that until now only existed inside source comments -- the three test lists and how two of them invert "passed", the sorted verb table, that a golden file is never edited to suit this interpreter, and that a fix gets mutation-checked with a file copy rather than git checkout. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 22:41:36 -04:00
```output
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
? 10 : RUNTIME ERROR DRAW needs a graphics device and this runtime has none
Execute every documented example as a test docs/ and README.md carry 85 fenced blocks. Every one was checked by hand exactly once, when it was written, which is not a standard that survives a changing interpreter -- and four were already wrong: two transcripts showing a leading space PRINT does not emit, akbasic_TextSink in README.md missing the two members it had grown hours earlier, and FILTER's refusal quoted with wording the code does not use. tests/docs_examples.sh reads a fence-tag vocabulary and runs what it finds. BASIC programs and transcripts run and are byte-compared against an `output` block; C snippets compile with -fsyntax-only against the real include path, which CMake writes out because it is transitive through akerror, akstdlib and akgl; shell blocks run in a sandbox. Anything that would reconfigure the build tree, hit the network or re-enter the suite is tagged norun with the reason in MAINTENANCE.md, and the two cmake blocks stay hand-maintained by decision. An untagged block is a failure rather than a default, and the pass line reports what it executed by kind. Both exist because the way a harness like this dies is by quietly matching nothing and passing -- which it duly did on the first CTest run, where a generator expression evaluating to nothing still contributed an empty argument that the script read as a filename. The count is what caught it. The excerpt check earns its own mention: a block tagged `c excerpt=include/akbasic/sink.h` must still appear in that header, comments and whitespace ignored. Compiling it would only redefine the type, so a compile check could not have found the stale struct, and did not. Registered as the CTest case docs_examples in both configurations. Fixing the four wrong examples turned up two interpreter defects, fixed in the previous commit and recorded in TODO.md section 8. MAINTENANCE.md is new: the fence-tag reference, what to do when the case fails, and the conventions that until now only existed inside source comments -- the three test lists and how two of them invert "passed", the sorted verb table, that a golden file is never edited to suit this interpreter, and that a fix gets mutation-checked with a file copy rather than git checkout. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 22:41:36 -04:00
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
```
## The coordinate space
Draw into the whole window, not its top-left 320x200 The graphics verbs documented a coordinate transform that did not exist. With SCALE off a coordinate went straight to akgl_draw_* as a pixel address, so an 800x600 window drew a C128 listing into its corner and left the rest unused -- while the chapter said coordinates were 320x200 and stretching to fit was the host's business. akbasic_GraphicsBackend gains a size entry point, require_graphics() asks it before every verb that draws so a resized window is honoured between two statements, and 320x200 becomes the fallback for a backend that leaves it NULL. It is the record's one optional member, so a host written against the old header keeps the behaviour it had. SCALE now maps onto the device, and RGR(1)/RGR(2) report the drawing surface so a program can use a window whose size it did not choose. RGR(0) is BASIC 7.0's own field, the GRAPHIC mode. SCALE also mapped xmax onto the width rather than onto the last pixel, so SCALE 1, 319, 199 followed by DRAW 1, 319, 199 drew nothing at all -- one pixel past the surface. Fixed in the same line, because it is what makes "SCALE gives a C128 listing the whole window" true rather than nearly true. The akgl test renders against a 128x128 target, deliberately smaller than the old constants: a SCALE still dividing by them misses it entirely rather than landing somewhere plausible. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 07:35:20 -04:00
**A drawing coordinate is a pixel of the host's window**, with (0, 0) at the top left.
On the standalone interpreter's 800 by 600 window, `DRAW 1, 799, 599` lands on the
bottom-right pixel and everything in between is reachable. A game embedding the
interpreter gets whatever size its own renderer is.
`RGR` is how a program finds out:
```basic requires=akgl
10 PRINT "THE SCREEN IS"
20 PRINT RGR(1)
30 PRINT "BY"
40 PRINT RGR(2)
50 DRAW 1, 0, 0 TO RGR(1) - 1, RGR(2) - 1
```
Subtracting one is not a wart, it is the last pixel: a window `RGR(1)` wide has
columns 0 through `RGR(1) - 1`.
**A C128 listing assumes 320 by 200 and will draw in the top-left corner.** Give it
the whole window by naming the space it was written for:
```basic requires=akgl
10 SCALE 1, 319, 199
20 BOX 1, 0, 0, 319, 199
```
That box is now the border of the window whatever size the window is. When no device
answers the size question at all, 320 by 200 is what the interpreter assumes — the
space a C128 listing was written for is the right thing to fall back to.
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
## Colour
`COLOR` binds a *source* to a palette index, and the drawing verbs name the source
rather than the colour:
Execute every documented example as a test docs/ and README.md carry 85 fenced blocks. Every one was checked by hand exactly once, when it was written, which is not a standard that survives a changing interpreter -- and four were already wrong: two transcripts showing a leading space PRINT does not emit, akbasic_TextSink in README.md missing the two members it had grown hours earlier, and FILTER's refusal quoted with wording the code does not use. tests/docs_examples.sh reads a fence-tag vocabulary and runs what it finds. BASIC programs and transcripts run and are byte-compared against an `output` block; C snippets compile with -fsyntax-only against the real include path, which CMake writes out because it is transitive through akerror, akstdlib and akgl; shell blocks run in a sandbox. Anything that would reconfigure the build tree, hit the network or re-enter the suite is tagged norun with the reason in MAINTENANCE.md, and the two cmake blocks stay hand-maintained by decision. An untagged block is a failure rather than a default, and the pass line reports what it executed by kind. Both exist because the way a harness like this dies is by quietly matching nothing and passing -- which it duly did on the first CTest run, where a generator expression evaluating to nothing still contributed an empty argument that the script read as a filename. The count is what caught it. The excerpt check earns its own mention: a block tagged `c excerpt=include/akbasic/sink.h` must still appear in that header, comments and whitespace ignored. Compiling it would only redefine the type, so a compile check could not have found the stale struct, and did not. Registered as the CTest case docs_examples in both configurations. Fixing the four wrong examples turned up two interpreter defects, fixed in the previous commit and recorded in TODO.md section 8. MAINTENANCE.md is new: the fence-tag reference, what to do when the case fails, and the conventions that until now only existed inside source comments -- the three test lists and how two of them invert "passed", the sorted verb table, that a golden file is never edited to suit this interpreter, and that a fix gets mutation-checked with a file copy rather than git checkout. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 22:41:36 -04:00
```basic requires=akgl
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
10 COLOR 1, 3
20 DRAW 1, 10, 20
```
Sources are numbered 0 to 6; palette indices are 1 to 16, as on a C128. That
indirection is BASIC 7.0's, and it is why every drawing verb's first argument is a
small number that is not a colour.
## The verbs
### GRAPHIC
`GRAPHIC mode` chooses a screen mode; `GRAPHIC CLR` clears it. Mode 0 is text and
refuses to draw.
Generate the documentation's figures from the listings they illustrate Chapters 6 and 8 described what a verb draws in prose. Eight figures now show it, and each one is produced by running the BASIC listing printed immediately above it -- so a picture cannot drift away from the code beside it, which is the way a screenshot goes wrong and the way nothing notices. tools/screenshot.c is a second SDL host, much smaller than the frontend: dummy video driver, software renderer, run to completion, read the target back, write a PNG. It draws no text layer on purpose, so a READY in the corner is not noise in a figure about BOX and no font has to be resolved. tools/docs_screenshots.sh reads the new screenshot=NAME fence tag straight out of the markdown. size=WxH is the second tag, and SCALE's figure uses it: the point being made is a 320x200 listing filling a larger window, which cannot be made on a 320x200 surface. Two gates, answering different questions. docs_examples fails a tagged block with no image, in both configurations, so a figure cannot be added and forgotten. docs_screenshots -- a CTest, AKGL build only -- re-renders every figure and compares byte for byte, so a listing edited without regenerating fails. Only the second catches a stale picture. The PNGs are checked in because a reader on the forge has no build tree, and docs/images/README.md says loudly that they are generated. Regenerating is never part of a build: the target is run deliberately, so a make cannot put eight binary diffs in front of whoever ran it. Drawing the BOX figure caught a defect in TODO.md itself. Deviation 16 claimed in bold that BOX fills on a negative angle while its own paragraph said the fill was filed rather than implemented. BOX cannot fill, and filled_rect is reached by no verb as a result. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 07:37:04 -04:00
Every picture in this chapter is generated by running the listing above it; see
`MAINTENANCE.md` if you are editing one.
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
### DRAW
Generate the documentation's figures from the listings they illustrate Chapters 6 and 8 described what a verb draws in prose. Eight figures now show it, and each one is produced by running the BASIC listing printed immediately above it -- so a picture cannot drift away from the code beside it, which is the way a screenshot goes wrong and the way nothing notices. tools/screenshot.c is a second SDL host, much smaller than the frontend: dummy video driver, software renderer, run to completion, read the target back, write a PNG. It draws no text layer on purpose, so a READY in the corner is not noise in a figure about BOX and no font has to be resolved. tools/docs_screenshots.sh reads the new screenshot=NAME fence tag straight out of the markdown. size=WxH is the second tag, and SCALE's figure uses it: the point being made is a 320x200 listing filling a larger window, which cannot be made on a 320x200 surface. Two gates, answering different questions. docs_examples fails a tagged block with no image, in both configurations, so a figure cannot be added and forgotten. docs_screenshots -- a CTest, AKGL build only -- re-renders every figure and compares byte for byte, so a listing edited without regenerating fails. Only the second catches a stale picture. The PNGs are checked in because a reader on the forge has no build tree, and docs/images/README.md says loudly that they are generated. Regenerating is never part of a build: the target is run deliberately, so a make cannot put eight binary diffs in front of whoever ran it. Drawing the BOX figure caught a defect in TODO.md itself. Deviation 16 claimed in bold that BOX fills on a negative angle while its own paragraph said the fill was filed rather than implemented. BOX cannot fill, and filled_rect is reached by no verb as a result. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 07:37:04 -04:00
```basic requires=akgl screenshot=draw
10 COLOR 1, 8
20 DRAW 1, 20, 180 TO 90, 40 TO 160, 150 TO 230, 20 TO 300, 120
30 COLOR 2, 6
40 DRAW 2, 20, 190 TO 300, 190
50 LOCATE 160, 100
60 COLOR 3, 3
70 DRAW 3
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
```
Generate the documentation's figures from the listings they illustrate Chapters 6 and 8 described what a verb draws in prose. Eight figures now show it, and each one is produced by running the BASIC listing printed immediately above it -- so a picture cannot drift away from the code beside it, which is the way a screenshot goes wrong and the way nothing notices. tools/screenshot.c is a second SDL host, much smaller than the frontend: dummy video driver, software renderer, run to completion, read the target back, write a PNG. It draws no text layer on purpose, so a READY in the corner is not noise in a figure about BOX and no font has to be resolved. tools/docs_screenshots.sh reads the new screenshot=NAME fence tag straight out of the markdown. size=WxH is the second tag, and SCALE's figure uses it: the point being made is a 320x200 listing filling a larger window, which cannot be made on a 320x200 surface. Two gates, answering different questions. docs_examples fails a tagged block with no image, in both configurations, so a figure cannot be added and forgotten. docs_screenshots -- a CTest, AKGL build only -- re-renders every figure and compares byte for byte, so a listing edited without regenerating fails. Only the second catches a stale picture. The PNGs are checked in because a reader on the forge has no build tree, and docs/images/README.md says loudly that they are generated. Regenerating is never part of a build: the target is run deliberately, so a make cannot put eight binary diffs in front of whoever ran it. Drawing the BOX figure caught a defect in TODO.md itself. Deviation 16 claimed in bold that BOX fills on a negative angle while its own paragraph said the fill was filed rather than implemented. BOX cannot fill, and filled_rect is reached by no verb as a result. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 07:37:04 -04:00
![](images/draw.png)
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
One coordinate pair plots a point. Two or more, separated by `TO`, draw a polyline. A
Generate the documentation's figures from the listings they illustrate Chapters 6 and 8 described what a verb draws in prose. Eight figures now show it, and each one is produced by running the BASIC listing printed immediately above it -- so a picture cannot drift away from the code beside it, which is the way a screenshot goes wrong and the way nothing notices. tools/screenshot.c is a second SDL host, much smaller than the frontend: dummy video driver, software renderer, run to completion, read the target back, write a PNG. It draws no text layer on purpose, so a READY in the corner is not noise in a figure about BOX and no font has to be resolved. tools/docs_screenshots.sh reads the new screenshot=NAME fence tag straight out of the markdown. size=WxH is the second tag, and SCALE's figure uses it: the point being made is a 320x200 listing filling a larger window, which cannot be made on a 320x200 surface. Two gates, answering different questions. docs_examples fails a tagged block with no image, in both configurations, so a figure cannot be added and forgotten. docs_screenshots -- a CTest, AKGL build only -- re-renders every figure and compares byte for byte, so a listing edited without regenerating fails. Only the second catches a stale picture. The PNGs are checked in because a reader on the forge has no build tree, and docs/images/README.md says loudly that they are generated. Regenerating is never part of a build: the target is run deliberately, so a make cannot put eight binary diffs in front of whoever ran it. Drawing the BOX figure caught a defect in TODO.md itself. Deviation 16 claimed in bold that BOX fills on a negative angle while its own paragraph said the fill was filed rather than implemented. BOX cannot fill, and filled_rect is reached by no verb as a result. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 07:37:04 -04:00
bare `DRAW 3` — the last line above, and the single red pixel in the middle of the
picture — plots wherever `LOCATE` left the pixel cursor.
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
### BOX
Generate the documentation's figures from the listings they illustrate Chapters 6 and 8 described what a verb draws in prose. Eight figures now show it, and each one is produced by running the BASIC listing printed immediately above it -- so a picture cannot drift away from the code beside it, which is the way a screenshot goes wrong and the way nothing notices. tools/screenshot.c is a second SDL host, much smaller than the frontend: dummy video driver, software renderer, run to completion, read the target back, write a PNG. It draws no text layer on purpose, so a READY in the corner is not noise in a figure about BOX and no font has to be resolved. tools/docs_screenshots.sh reads the new screenshot=NAME fence tag straight out of the markdown. size=WxH is the second tag, and SCALE's figure uses it: the point being made is a 320x200 listing filling a larger window, which cannot be made on a 320x200 surface. Two gates, answering different questions. docs_examples fails a tagged block with no image, in both configurations, so a figure cannot be added and forgotten. docs_screenshots -- a CTest, AKGL build only -- re-renders every figure and compares byte for byte, so a listing edited without regenerating fails. Only the second catches a stale picture. The PNGs are checked in because a reader on the forge has no build tree, and docs/images/README.md says loudly that they are generated. Regenerating is never part of a build: the target is run deliberately, so a make cannot put eight binary diffs in front of whoever ran it. Drawing the BOX figure caught a defect in TODO.md itself. Deviation 16 claimed in bold that BOX fills on a negative angle while its own paragraph said the fill was filed rather than implemented. BOX cannot fill, and filled_rect is reached by no verb as a result. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 07:37:04 -04:00
```basic requires=akgl screenshot=box
10 COLOR 1, 8
20 BOX 1, 20, 30, 130, 140
30 COLOR 2, 6
40 BOX 2, 180, 30, 290, 140, 30
50 COLOR 3, 3
60 LOCATE 300, 190
70 BOX 3, 20, 160
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
```
Generate the documentation's figures from the listings they illustrate Chapters 6 and 8 described what a verb draws in prose. Eight figures now show it, and each one is produced by running the BASIC listing printed immediately above it -- so a picture cannot drift away from the code beside it, which is the way a screenshot goes wrong and the way nothing notices. tools/screenshot.c is a second SDL host, much smaller than the frontend: dummy video driver, software renderer, run to completion, read the target back, write a PNG. It draws no text layer on purpose, so a READY in the corner is not noise in a figure about BOX and no font has to be resolved. tools/docs_screenshots.sh reads the new screenshot=NAME fence tag straight out of the markdown. size=WxH is the second tag, and SCALE's figure uses it: the point being made is a 320x200 listing filling a larger window, which cannot be made on a 320x200 surface. Two gates, answering different questions. docs_examples fails a tagged block with no image, in both configurations, so a figure cannot be added and forgotten. docs_screenshots -- a CTest, AKGL build only -- re-renders every figure and compares byte for byte, so a listing edited without regenerating fails. Only the second catches a stale picture. The PNGs are checked in because a reader on the forge has no build tree, and docs/images/README.md says loudly that they are generated. Regenerating is never part of a build: the target is run deliberately, so a make cannot put eight binary diffs in front of whoever ran it. Drawing the BOX figure caught a defect in TODO.md itself. Deviation 16 claimed in bold that BOX fills on a negative angle while its own paragraph said the fill was filed rather than implemented. BOX cannot fill, and filled_rect is reached by no verb as a result. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 07:37:04 -04:00
![](images/box.png)
Corners, and an optional rotation angle — the green box is the same box turned 30
degrees about its own centre. Two coordinates instead of four take the other corner
from the pixel cursor, which is the red box.
**`BOX` always outlines; it cannot fill.** BASIC 7.0 selects fill with a seventh
argument and that is not implemented here — see Chapter 13. `PAINT` is the fill you
have.
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
### CIRCLE
Generate the documentation's figures from the listings they illustrate Chapters 6 and 8 described what a verb draws in prose. Eight figures now show it, and each one is produced by running the BASIC listing printed immediately above it -- so a picture cannot drift away from the code beside it, which is the way a screenshot goes wrong and the way nothing notices. tools/screenshot.c is a second SDL host, much smaller than the frontend: dummy video driver, software renderer, run to completion, read the target back, write a PNG. It draws no text layer on purpose, so a READY in the corner is not noise in a figure about BOX and no font has to be resolved. tools/docs_screenshots.sh reads the new screenshot=NAME fence tag straight out of the markdown. size=WxH is the second tag, and SCALE's figure uses it: the point being made is a 320x200 listing filling a larger window, which cannot be made on a 320x200 surface. Two gates, answering different questions. docs_examples fails a tagged block with no image, in both configurations, so a figure cannot be added and forgotten. docs_screenshots -- a CTest, AKGL build only -- re-renders every figure and compares byte for byte, so a listing edited without regenerating fails. Only the second catches a stale picture. The PNGs are checked in because a reader on the forge has no build tree, and docs/images/README.md says loudly that they are generated. Regenerating is never part of a build: the target is run deliberately, so a make cannot put eight binary diffs in front of whoever ran it. Drawing the BOX figure caught a defect in TODO.md itself. Deviation 16 claimed in bold that BOX fills on a negative angle while its own paragraph said the fill was filed rather than implemented. BOX cannot fill, and filled_rect is reached by no verb as a result. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 07:37:04 -04:00
```basic requires=akgl screenshot=circle
10 COLOR 1, 8
20 CIRCLE 1, 80, 70, 60, 60
30 COLOR 2, 6
40 CIRCLE 2, 230, 70, 75, 45
50 COLOR 3, 3
60 CIRCLE 3, 160, 140, 130, 50, 90, 270
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
```
Generate the documentation's figures from the listings they illustrate Chapters 6 and 8 described what a verb draws in prose. Eight figures now show it, and each one is produced by running the BASIC listing printed immediately above it -- so a picture cannot drift away from the code beside it, which is the way a screenshot goes wrong and the way nothing notices. tools/screenshot.c is a second SDL host, much smaller than the frontend: dummy video driver, software renderer, run to completion, read the target back, write a PNG. It draws no text layer on purpose, so a READY in the corner is not noise in a figure about BOX and no font has to be resolved. tools/docs_screenshots.sh reads the new screenshot=NAME fence tag straight out of the markdown. size=WxH is the second tag, and SCALE's figure uses it: the point being made is a 320x200 listing filling a larger window, which cannot be made on a 320x200 surface. Two gates, answering different questions. docs_examples fails a tagged block with no image, in both configurations, so a figure cannot be added and forgotten. docs_screenshots -- a CTest, AKGL build only -- re-renders every figure and compares byte for byte, so a listing edited without regenerating fails. Only the second catches a stale picture. The PNGs are checked in because a reader on the forge has no build tree, and docs/images/README.md says loudly that they are generated. Regenerating is never part of a build: the target is run deliberately, so a make cannot put eight binary diffs in front of whoever ran it. Drawing the BOX figure caught a defect in TODO.md itself. Deviation 16 claimed in bold that BOX fills on a negative angle while its own paragraph said the fill was filed rather than implemented. BOX cannot fill, and filled_rect is reached by no verb as a result. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 07:37:04 -04:00
![](images/circle.png)
Source, centre, then the two radii — equal radii give a circle and unequal ones an
ellipse. Two further arguments are a start and an end angle, which is what makes the
red arc: 90 to 270 is the bottom half, because angles here are degrees clockwise from
straight up, the same convention `MOVSPR` uses. Beyond those come a rotation and the
degree increment, and a large increment is what turns a circle into a polygon.
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
### PAINT
Generate the documentation's figures from the listings they illustrate Chapters 6 and 8 described what a verb draws in prose. Eight figures now show it, and each one is produced by running the BASIC listing printed immediately above it -- so a picture cannot drift away from the code beside it, which is the way a screenshot goes wrong and the way nothing notices. tools/screenshot.c is a second SDL host, much smaller than the frontend: dummy video driver, software renderer, run to completion, read the target back, write a PNG. It draws no text layer on purpose, so a READY in the corner is not noise in a figure about BOX and no font has to be resolved. tools/docs_screenshots.sh reads the new screenshot=NAME fence tag straight out of the markdown. size=WxH is the second tag, and SCALE's figure uses it: the point being made is a 320x200 listing filling a larger window, which cannot be made on a 320x200 surface. Two gates, answering different questions. docs_examples fails a tagged block with no image, in both configurations, so a figure cannot be added and forgotten. docs_screenshots -- a CTest, AKGL build only -- re-renders every figure and compares byte for byte, so a listing edited without regenerating fails. Only the second catches a stale picture. The PNGs are checked in because a reader on the forge has no build tree, and docs/images/README.md says loudly that they are generated. Regenerating is never part of a build: the target is run deliberately, so a make cannot put eight binary diffs in front of whoever ran it. Drawing the BOX figure caught a defect in TODO.md itself. Deviation 16 claimed in bold that BOX fills on a negative angle while its own paragraph said the fill was filed rather than implemented. BOX cannot fill, and filled_rect is reached by no verb as a result. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 07:37:04 -04:00
```basic requires=akgl screenshot=paint
10 COLOR 1, 8
20 CIRCLE 1, 100, 100, 70, 70
30 BOX 1, 180, 50, 290, 150
40 COLOR 2, 6
50 PAINT 2, 100, 100
60 COLOR 3, 3
70 PAINT 3, 230, 100
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
```
Generate the documentation's figures from the listings they illustrate Chapters 6 and 8 described what a verb draws in prose. Eight figures now show it, and each one is produced by running the BASIC listing printed immediately above it -- so a picture cannot drift away from the code beside it, which is the way a screenshot goes wrong and the way nothing notices. tools/screenshot.c is a second SDL host, much smaller than the frontend: dummy video driver, software renderer, run to completion, read the target back, write a PNG. It draws no text layer on purpose, so a READY in the corner is not noise in a figure about BOX and no font has to be resolved. tools/docs_screenshots.sh reads the new screenshot=NAME fence tag straight out of the markdown. size=WxH is the second tag, and SCALE's figure uses it: the point being made is a 320x200 listing filling a larger window, which cannot be made on a 320x200 surface. Two gates, answering different questions. docs_examples fails a tagged block with no image, in both configurations, so a figure cannot be added and forgotten. docs_screenshots -- a CTest, AKGL build only -- re-renders every figure and compares byte for byte, so a listing edited without regenerating fails. Only the second catches a stale picture. The PNGs are checked in because a reader on the forge has no build tree, and docs/images/README.md says loudly that they are generated. Regenerating is never part of a build: the target is run deliberately, so a make cannot put eight binary diffs in front of whoever ran it. Drawing the BOX figure caught a defect in TODO.md itself. Deviation 16 claimed in bold that BOX fills on a negative angle while its own paragraph said the fill was filed rather than implemented. BOX cannot fill, and filled_rect is reached by no verb as a result. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 07:37:04 -04:00
![](images/paint.png)
Flood-fills the region containing a point, stopping at whatever is already drawn — so
the outline you fill inside can come from any verb. If the region is too large for the
fill's own working space it stops and reports rather than leaving a half-painted screen
with no explanation.
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
### LOCATE
Moves the pixel cursor, which is where a bare `DRAW` plots and where a `BOX` with two
coordinates finishes.
### SCALE
Generate the documentation's figures from the listings they illustrate Chapters 6 and 8 described what a verb draws in prose. Eight figures now show it, and each one is produced by running the BASIC listing printed immediately above it -- so a picture cannot drift away from the code beside it, which is the way a screenshot goes wrong and the way nothing notices. tools/screenshot.c is a second SDL host, much smaller than the frontend: dummy video driver, software renderer, run to completion, read the target back, write a PNG. It draws no text layer on purpose, so a READY in the corner is not noise in a figure about BOX and no font has to be resolved. tools/docs_screenshots.sh reads the new screenshot=NAME fence tag straight out of the markdown. size=WxH is the second tag, and SCALE's figure uses it: the point being made is a 320x200 listing filling a larger window, which cannot be made on a 320x200 surface. Two gates, answering different questions. docs_examples fails a tagged block with no image, in both configurations, so a figure cannot be added and forgotten. docs_screenshots -- a CTest, AKGL build only -- re-renders every figure and compares byte for byte, so a listing edited without regenerating fails. Only the second catches a stale picture. The PNGs are checked in because a reader on the forge has no build tree, and docs/images/README.md says loudly that they are generated. Regenerating is never part of a build: the target is run deliberately, so a make cannot put eight binary diffs in front of whoever ran it. Drawing the BOX figure caught a defect in TODO.md itself. Deviation 16 claimed in bold that BOX fills on a negative angle while its own paragraph said the fill was filed rather than implemented. BOX cannot fill, and filled_rect is reached by no verb as a result. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 07:37:04 -04:00
```basic requires=akgl screenshot=scale size=640x400
10 COLOR 1, 3
20 BOX 1, 0, 0, 319, 199
30 SCALE 1, 319, 199
40 COLOR 2, 6
50 BOX 2, 0, 0, 319, 199
60 DRAW 2, 0, 0 TO 319, 199
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
```
Generate the documentation's figures from the listings they illustrate Chapters 6 and 8 described what a verb draws in prose. Eight figures now show it, and each one is produced by running the BASIC listing printed immediately above it -- so a picture cannot drift away from the code beside it, which is the way a screenshot goes wrong and the way nothing notices. tools/screenshot.c is a second SDL host, much smaller than the frontend: dummy video driver, software renderer, run to completion, read the target back, write a PNG. It draws no text layer on purpose, so a READY in the corner is not noise in a figure about BOX and no font has to be resolved. tools/docs_screenshots.sh reads the new screenshot=NAME fence tag straight out of the markdown. size=WxH is the second tag, and SCALE's figure uses it: the point being made is a 320x200 listing filling a larger window, which cannot be made on a 320x200 surface. Two gates, answering different questions. docs_examples fails a tagged block with no image, in both configurations, so a figure cannot be added and forgotten. docs_screenshots -- a CTest, AKGL build only -- re-renders every figure and compares byte for byte, so a listing edited without regenerating fails. Only the second catches a stale picture. The PNGs are checked in because a reader on the forge has no build tree, and docs/images/README.md says loudly that they are generated. Regenerating is never part of a build: the target is run deliberately, so a make cannot put eight binary diffs in front of whoever ran it. Drawing the BOX figure caught a defect in TODO.md itself. Deviation 16 claimed in bold that BOX fills on a negative angle while its own paragraph said the fill was filed rather than implemented. BOX cannot fill, and filled_rect is reached by no verb as a result. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 07:37:04 -04:00
![](images/scale.png)
That picture is 640 by 400, and both boxes name the same four numbers. The red one is
drawn with `SCALE` off, so its coordinates are pixels and it covers exactly the
top-left 320 by 200 of the window — which is what a C128 listing does here. The green
one is drawn after `SCALE 1, 319, 199` and fills the window, and the diagonal confirms
that 319, 199 reaches the last pixel rather than stopping one short of it.
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
Turns on user coordinates and gives their maxima. With it on, your coordinates are
Draw into the whole window, not its top-left 320x200 The graphics verbs documented a coordinate transform that did not exist. With SCALE off a coordinate went straight to akgl_draw_* as a pixel address, so an 800x600 window drew a C128 listing into its corner and left the rest unused -- while the chapter said coordinates were 320x200 and stretching to fit was the host's business. akbasic_GraphicsBackend gains a size entry point, require_graphics() asks it before every verb that draws so a resized window is honoured between two statements, and 320x200 becomes the fallback for a backend that leaves it NULL. It is the record's one optional member, so a host written against the old header keeps the behaviour it had. SCALE now maps onto the device, and RGR(1)/RGR(2) report the drawing surface so a program can use a window whose size it did not choose. RGR(0) is BASIC 7.0's own field, the GRAPHIC mode. SCALE also mapped xmax onto the width rather than onto the last pixel, so SCALE 1, 319, 199 followed by DRAW 1, 319, 199 drew nothing at all -- one pixel past the surface. Fixed in the same line, because it is what makes "SCALE gives a C128 listing the whole window" true rather than nearly true. The akgl test renders against a 128x128 target, deliberately smaller than the old constants: a SCALE still dividing by them misses it entirely rather than landing somewhere plausible. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 07:35:20 -04:00
mapped onto the drawing surface: 0 is the first pixel and the maximum you gave is the
*last* one, so `DRAW 1, 1023, 1023` above reaches the bottom-right corner rather than
missing it by a pixel. `SCALE 1` on its own uses 7.0's 1023 by 1023. `SCALE 0` turns
it off and coordinates go back to being window pixels.
### RGR
`RGR(0)` is the current `GRAPHIC` mode. `RGR(1)` and `RGR(2)` are the drawing
surface's width and height in pixels — those two are ours rather than 7.0's, and they
Let a program ask how big the text grid is `RGR(1)` and `RGR(2)` gave the window in pixels and nothing gave columns, rows or the cell size -- so anything placing a character *and* a sprite at the same spot had to hardcode a number measured by hand against whatever font the host loaded. The Breakout in examples/ does exactly that, `CW# = 16`, and it is the one thing in that listing that breaks on a different font or window. **`RWINDOW` is BASIC 7.0's own answer and had never been implemented here.** `RWINDOW(0)` is the current text window's rows and `RWINDOW(1)` its columns. `RWINDOW(2)` reports a C128's 40 or 80 column screen mode, and this interpreter has neither -- refused by name, because answering 0 would be a plausible lie, which is worse than a refusal that says why. The cell size in pixels is `RGR(3)` and `RGR(4)`, beside the surface's own dimensions rather than on `RWINDOW`. Two reasons: a cell size is a fact about the surface, and `RWINDOW` reports the *window*, so dividing `RGR(1)` by a column count stops being right the moment a program calls `WINDOW`. Both read a new optional `grid` entry point on `akbasic_TextSink` -- columns, rows, cell width, cell height -- implemented by the akgl sink and forwarded by the tee, in the shape `moveto` and `window` already had. NULL everywhere else, so both verbs refuse by name against a sink with no grid. `akbasic_sink_init_ stdio()` clears it for the same reason it now clears the other two. Measured on the standalone build: `RGR(3)` answers 16 and `RWINDOW` answers 50 columns by 37 rows -- the three numbers the Breakout listing had written out as constants -- and `RWINDOW` follows a `WINDOW` call while `RGR(3)` does not. tests/console_verbs.c drives the answers through a stand-in sink with a grid, since the harness sink is stdio and has none; tests/graphics_verbs.c covers the new `RGR` fields, their refusal, and the moved range bound. The `c excerpt=` block in docs/10-embedding.md moves with the header, which is `docs_examples` doing its job. TODO.md section 6 item 31's second half, struck. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-02 00:05:17 -04:00
are what a program needs to use a window whose size it did not choose. They
refuse when there is no graphics device, unlike `RGR(0)`, which is a mode this
Draw into the whole window, not its top-left 320x200 The graphics verbs documented a coordinate transform that did not exist. With SCALE off a coordinate went straight to akgl_draw_* as a pixel address, so an 800x600 window drew a C128 listing into its corner and left the rest unused -- while the chapter said coordinates were 320x200 and stretching to fit was the host's business. akbasic_GraphicsBackend gains a size entry point, require_graphics() asks it before every verb that draws so a resized window is honoured between two statements, and 320x200 becomes the fallback for a backend that leaves it NULL. It is the record's one optional member, so a host written against the old header keeps the behaviour it had. SCALE now maps onto the device, and RGR(1)/RGR(2) report the drawing surface so a program can use a window whose size it did not choose. RGR(0) is BASIC 7.0's own field, the GRAPHIC mode. SCALE also mapped xmax onto the width rather than onto the last pixel, so SCALE 1, 319, 199 followed by DRAW 1, 319, 199 drew nothing at all -- one pixel past the surface. Fixed in the same line, because it is what makes "SCALE gives a C128 listing the whole window" true rather than nearly true. The akgl test renders against a 128x128 target, deliberately smaller than the old constants: a SCALE still dividing by them misses it entirely rather than landing somewhere plausible. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 07:35:20 -04:00
interpreter recorded rather than a screen it has to go and measure.
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
Let a program ask how big the text grid is `RGR(1)` and `RGR(2)` gave the window in pixels and nothing gave columns, rows or the cell size -- so anything placing a character *and* a sprite at the same spot had to hardcode a number measured by hand against whatever font the host loaded. The Breakout in examples/ does exactly that, `CW# = 16`, and it is the one thing in that listing that breaks on a different font or window. **`RWINDOW` is BASIC 7.0's own answer and had never been implemented here.** `RWINDOW(0)` is the current text window's rows and `RWINDOW(1)` its columns. `RWINDOW(2)` reports a C128's 40 or 80 column screen mode, and this interpreter has neither -- refused by name, because answering 0 would be a plausible lie, which is worse than a refusal that says why. The cell size in pixels is `RGR(3)` and `RGR(4)`, beside the surface's own dimensions rather than on `RWINDOW`. Two reasons: a cell size is a fact about the surface, and `RWINDOW` reports the *window*, so dividing `RGR(1)` by a column count stops being right the moment a program calls `WINDOW`. Both read a new optional `grid` entry point on `akbasic_TextSink` -- columns, rows, cell width, cell height -- implemented by the akgl sink and forwarded by the tee, in the shape `moveto` and `window` already had. NULL everywhere else, so both verbs refuse by name against a sink with no grid. `akbasic_sink_init_ stdio()` clears it for the same reason it now clears the other two. Measured on the standalone build: `RGR(3)` answers 16 and `RWINDOW` answers 50 columns by 37 rows -- the three numbers the Breakout listing had written out as constants -- and `RWINDOW` follows a `WINDOW` call while `RGR(3)` does not. tests/console_verbs.c drives the answers through a stand-in sink with a grid, since the harness sink is stdio and has none; tests/graphics_verbs.c covers the new `RGR` fields, their refusal, and the moved range bound. The `c excerpt=` block in docs/10-embedding.md moves with the header, which is `docs_examples` doing its job. TODO.md section 6 item 31's second half, struck. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-02 00:05:17 -04:00
**`RGR(3)` and `RGR(4)` are a character cell's width and height**, also ours. They come
from the *text* device rather than the graphics one — a character grid belongs to the
sink — so they refuse by naming that instead. Between them and
[`RWINDOW`](12-function-reference.md), which gives the current text window in columns
and rows, a program can place a character and a sprite at the same spot without
hardcoding a number measured against whatever font the host loaded:
```basic requires=akgl
10 CW# = RGR(3)
20 CH# = RGR(4)
30 COL# = 12
40 ROW# = 3
50 CHAR 1, COL#, ROW#, "X"
60 MOVSPR 1, COL# * CW#, ROW# * CH#
```
`RWINDOW` follows a `WINDOW` call, because it reports the window. `RGR(3)` and `RGR(4)`
do not, because windowing does not change how big a character is.
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
### WIDTH
`WIDTH 1` or `WIDTH 2` sets how thick a drawn line is. A thick line is drawn as
parallel passes; see Chapter 13.
## Saving and stamping regions
`SSHAPE` copies a rectangle off the screen and `GSHAPE` stamps it back:
Generate the documentation's figures from the listings they illustrate Chapters 6 and 8 described what a verb draws in prose. Eight figures now show it, and each one is produced by running the BASIC listing printed immediately above it -- so a picture cannot drift away from the code beside it, which is the way a screenshot goes wrong and the way nothing notices. tools/screenshot.c is a second SDL host, much smaller than the frontend: dummy video driver, software renderer, run to completion, read the target back, write a PNG. It draws no text layer on purpose, so a READY in the corner is not noise in a figure about BOX and no font has to be resolved. tools/docs_screenshots.sh reads the new screenshot=NAME fence tag straight out of the markdown. size=WxH is the second tag, and SCALE's figure uses it: the point being made is a 320x200 listing filling a larger window, which cannot be made on a 320x200 surface. Two gates, answering different questions. docs_examples fails a tagged block with no image, in both configurations, so a figure cannot be added and forgotten. docs_screenshots -- a CTest, AKGL build only -- re-renders every figure and compares byte for byte, so a listing edited without regenerating fails. Only the second catches a stale picture. The PNGs are checked in because a reader on the forge has no build tree, and docs/images/README.md says loudly that they are generated. Regenerating is never part of a build: the target is run deliberately, so a make cannot put eight binary diffs in front of whoever ran it. Drawing the BOX figure caught a defect in TODO.md itself. Deviation 16 claimed in bold that BOX fills on a negative angle while its own paragraph said the fill was filed rather than implemented. BOX cannot fill, and filled_rect is reached by no verb as a result. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 07:37:04 -04:00
```basic requires=akgl screenshot=shapes
10 COLOR 1, 8
20 CIRCLE 1, 40, 40, 30, 30
30 COLOR 2, 6
40 PAINT 2, 40, 40
50 SSHAPE A$, 8, 8, 72, 72
60 GSHAPE A$, 120, 20
70 GSHAPE A$, 200, 60
80 GSHAPE A$, 120, 120
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
```
Generate the documentation's figures from the listings they illustrate Chapters 6 and 8 described what a verb draws in prose. Eight figures now show it, and each one is produced by running the BASIC listing printed immediately above it -- so a picture cannot drift away from the code beside it, which is the way a screenshot goes wrong and the way nothing notices. tools/screenshot.c is a second SDL host, much smaller than the frontend: dummy video driver, software renderer, run to completion, read the target back, write a PNG. It draws no text layer on purpose, so a READY in the corner is not noise in a figure about BOX and no font has to be resolved. tools/docs_screenshots.sh reads the new screenshot=NAME fence tag straight out of the markdown. size=WxH is the second tag, and SCALE's figure uses it: the point being made is a 320x200 listing filling a larger window, which cannot be made on a 320x200 surface. Two gates, answering different questions. docs_examples fails a tagged block with no image, in both configurations, so a figure cannot be added and forgotten. docs_screenshots -- a CTest, AKGL build only -- re-renders every figure and compares byte for byte, so a listing edited without regenerating fails. Only the second catches a stale picture. The PNGs are checked in because a reader on the forge has no build tree, and docs/images/README.md says loudly that they are generated. Regenerating is never part of a build: the target is run deliberately, so a make cannot put eight binary diffs in front of whoever ran it. Drawing the BOX figure caught a defect in TODO.md itself. Deviation 16 claimed in bold that BOX fills on a negative angle while its own paragraph said the fill was filed rather than implemented. BOX cannot fill, and filled_rect is reached by no verb as a result. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 07:37:04 -04:00
![](images/shapes.png)
One disc drawn, captured, and stamped three times.
Honour a subscript in SSHAPE and GSHAPE `shape_variable()` took the identifier off the leaf and looked the variable up without ever evaluating the subscript, and both verbs then addressed element zero with a literal. So `SSHAPE SH$(2), ...` wrote the handle into `SH$(0)` and `GSHAPE SH$(2)` stamped whatever was in `SH$(0)`. Ordinary assignment and `PRINT` honour the subscript, which is what made this expensive: a program keeping several saved shapes in an array got every one of them resolving to the same element, silently, and the only symptom was that every stamp came out as the last shape captured. The Breakout in examples/ keeps its six brick stamps in six separate scalars for exactly this reason. `SPRSAV` was the counter-example and is the model -- it evaluates its argument and handles an array element correctly. The subscript resolution itself is now shared: `collect_subscripts()` comes out of src/environment.c as `akbasic_environment_collect_subscripts()`, so a verb taking a variable by name resolves a subscript the same way assignment does rather than each verb deciding for itself. tests/graphics_verbs.c covers TODO.md's reduction -- which used to print "[SHAPE:0] []" and now prints "[] [SHAPE:0]" -- and the case a program actually wants: two shapes captured into two elements, each stamped back through its own, asserted against the device log so a fix that merely made the strings look right would not pass. Chapter 18's trap 4 becomes history, and Chapter 6 says an array works. TODO.md section 9 item 6, struck. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-02 00:10:24 -04:00
A string array works: `SSHAPE SH$(2), ...` writes into element 2 and `GSHAPE SH$(2)`
stamps what element 2 names, so a program can keep a set of shapes in one array.
Write the usage guide as thirteen chapters in docs/ Organised the way the C128 Programmer's Reference Guide is: the language first, then each hardware area, then the reference sections. One markdown file per chapter. The verb and function references are generated from the interpreter's own dispatch table, with an assertion that every row is described, so they cannot drift out of step with what the program accepts. 98 verbs and 30 functions. Every example was run before it was written down, which caught three claims that were wrong: a whole FOR loop on one line prints nothing rather than looping once, MID and INSTR count from zero where a C128 counts from one, and a multi-line DEF returns a value the caller has to assign away. Chapter 13 is the list a BASIC 7.0 programmer needs -- roughly sixty documented differences, including the two known FOR defects and the fact that drawing does not survive a frame. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 21:50:50 -04:00
**`A$` holds a handle, not the pixels.** On a C128 the string holds the bitmap, so a
program could save it to disk or take its `LEN`. Here a string is a fixed 255 bytes and
the region is a device surface, so what goes in the string is a reference to it —
`SHAPE:0`. You can pass it to `GSHAPE` and to `SPRSAV`, which is everything BASIC ever
does with one, but you cannot store it or measure it.
## What is not here
`FILTER` parses and then refuses: there is no filter stage to configure. See Chapter 7.
The graphics verbs draw straight to the renderer rather than into a display list, so
anything drawn is overwritten by the text layer on the next frame. A program that wants
its drawing to persist has to redraw it. This is recorded as a defect rather than a
design; see Chapter 13.
Write down that a redraw has to fit inside one batch "Drawing does not persist across frames; redraw it every frame" was the advice, and it is not sufficient on its own. The host runs a fixed number of source lines and then presents, and presenting discards the drawing buffer -- so a run of drawing verbs longer than one budget is **torn**, not merely transient, and an `SSHAPE` at the end of it captures only what was issued since the present, over whatever the frame before left behind. Measured against the standalone frontend's 256: after synchronising to a jiffy edge, 220 lines of drawing survive a capture and 250 do not. There is no fix available that does not change what a host owns -- the budget is the host's and so is the present -- so this is documentation, in the three places it belongs. Chapter 13 beside the note it qualifies, with the numbers. Chapter 6 where `SSHAPE` is introduced, which is where a program meets it. Chapter 14 from the step loop's side, naming `AKBASIC_FRONTEND_STEPS_PER_FRAME` and explaining the one thing a script can do about it: `settime()` is called once a frame, so `TI#` changes on the first step of a batch and nowhere else, and spinning until it changes is the only frame synchronisation this dialect has. **Untested, deliberately.** Reproducing it needs the real frontend, a clock and a timing window, and a test that reproduced it would be reproducing a race. Recorded in TODO.md rather than left looking like an oversight. TODO.md section 9 item 5, struck as a documentation outcome. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-02 00:23:36 -04:00
**A redraw also has to fit inside one batch.** The host runs a fixed number of source
lines and then presents, and presenting throws the drawing buffer away — so a run of
drawing verbs longer than one batch is torn rather than merely transient, and an
`SSHAPE` at the end of it captures only the part issued since the present. Watching
`TI#` change is how a program finds the boundary; Chapter 13 has the measured numbers and
Rewrite the two game tutorials as instructions rather than commentary Chapters 17 and 18 read as a code review of a finished listing: they explained why each decision had been made, walked through the project's own history, and led with what had once been broken. A reader who wanted to build the game got the reasoning and had to reconstruct the program. Both are now step-by-step. Each opens with a picture of the finished game and a bullet list of the steps, each bullet is a section, and each section states its goal, shows the code, and says how to check it. Chapter 17 is sixteen steps and Chapter 18 is thirteen, and the last of each is the assembly: the order of the file, the full declaration block, and the routines the earlier steps referred to. Project history is gone -- it belongs in Chapter 14 and in git -- and where a listing has to do something awkward, the tutorial shows how first and names the `TODO.md` item that will make it unnecessary second. **Three defects had no entry anywhere**, which the rewrite found by trying to state each rule as a rule. §6 item 35: `a - b + c` computes `a - (b + c)`, because `subtraction()` sits above `addition()` as its own precedence level and the inner loop eats the `+`. Item 36: only one unparenthesised `AND` or `OR` is matched, which is item 12's `if`-where-`while` on the one operator pair item 12 did not reach. Item 37: a `GOTO` out of a `FOR` or a `DO` leaks the loop's scope, so a main loop written that way stops on the thirty-second lost life -- which is why both games are built out of `LABEL` and `GOTO`, and it is a workaround rather than a preference. Chapter 3 gains the identifier rule the third trial ran into: there is no underscore in a name, and the error says `UNKNOWN TOKEN _`. **`tools/screenshot.c` learned to draw the text layer**, behind a new `text=1` fence attribute, because Chapter 17's game is characters in the grid and a figure without that layer is two sprites on black. It opens the bundled font at the size the standalone frontend uses, so a figure's cell size is the reader's cell size, and it uses the akgl sink alone rather than a tee so the program's output lands in the picture instead of on the stdout the caller reads to decide a figure failed. Both new figures -- `breakout-game.png` and `breakout-game-artwork.png` -- are generated from listings in the chapters like every other one. Verified by handing each chapter, alone, to an agent on a much smaller model and telling it to build the game from the tutorial text with the `examples/` tree off limits. The first pass scored 3.5 and 3 out of 10 and named what was missing: routines referred to but never shown, the third level layout, the sprite `DATA`, the font table, edits to earlier routines that were never marked as edits. Those are now in. The second pass built a 658-line Chapter 17 game that plays itself for ninety seconds with the score at 1890 and no error line, and the third built a 1053-line Chapter 18 game with 61 labels, no invented routines, no gaps found, and forty seconds clean. 9/10 and 8/10. One real bug in the new prose, caught in review: Chapter 18's `HITBAR` did not set the `HIT#` that `BALLPADDLE` reads to decide whether the paddle already caught the ball. Both suites green in both configurations, `docs_examples` and `docs_screenshots --check` pass. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01EwxGB6TdoVvZ11KQQME9cL
2026-08-02 08:08:23 -04:00
[Chapter 18](18-tutorial-breakout-artwork.md#step-5-find-the-frame-boundary) has a
Write down that a redraw has to fit inside one batch "Drawing does not persist across frames; redraw it every frame" was the advice, and it is not sufficient on its own. The host runs a fixed number of source lines and then presents, and presenting discards the drawing buffer -- so a run of drawing verbs longer than one budget is **torn**, not merely transient, and an `SSHAPE` at the end of it captures only what was issued since the present, over whatever the frame before left behind. Measured against the standalone frontend's 256: after synchronising to a jiffy edge, 220 lines of drawing survive a capture and 250 do not. There is no fix available that does not change what a host owns -- the budget is the host's and so is the present -- so this is documentation, in the three places it belongs. Chapter 13 beside the note it qualifies, with the numbers. Chapter 6 where `SSHAPE` is introduced, which is where a program meets it. Chapter 14 from the step loop's side, naming `AKBASIC_FRONTEND_STEPS_PER_FRAME` and explaining the one thing a script can do about it: `settime()` is called once a frame, so `TI#` changes on the first step of a batch and nowhere else, and spinning until it changes is the only frame synchronisation this dialect has. **Untested, deliberately.** Reproducing it needs the real frontend, a clock and a timing window, and a test that reproduced it would be reproducing a race. Recorded in TODO.md rather than left looking like an oversight. TODO.md section 9 item 5, struck as a documentation outcome. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-02 00:23:36 -04:00
routine that uses them.
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