Sinclair_BASIC Sinclair_BASIC

Sinclair BASIC - Definition and Overview

Sinclair BASIC (taking its name from innovator Sir Clive Sinclair) is a dialect of the BASIC programming language used in the home computers from Sinclair Research and Timex Sinclair.

Originally developed in 1979 to fit in the 4 KB ROM of the ZX80, it was initially an incomplete implementation of the 1978 ANSI minimal BASIC standard and evolved through the 8K ROM ZX81 and Timex Sinclair 1000 (TS1000) to be an almost complete version in the 16K ROM ZX Spectrum.

Reserved words

On the Spectrum there are 86 reserved words in Sinclair BASIC, denoting commands, statements, combined commands/statements, functions, and other keywords :

ABS, ACS, AND¹, ASN, AT, ATN, ATTR, BEEP, BIN, BORDER, BRIGHT, CAT², CHR$, CIRCLE, CLEAR, CLOSE#², CLS, CODE, CONTINUE, COPY, COS, DATA, DEF FN, DIM, DRAW, ERASE², EXP, FLASH, FN, FOR, FORMAT², GO SUB, GO TO, IF, IN, INK, INKEY$, INPUT, INT, INVERSE, LEN, LET, LINE, LIST, LLIST, LN, LOAD, LPRINT, MERGE, MOVE², NEW, NEXT, NOT¹, OPEN#², OR¹, OUT, OVER, PAPER, PAUSE, PEEK, PI, PLOT, POINT, POKE, PRINT, RANDOMIZE, READ, REM, RESTORE, RETURN, RND, RUN, SAVE, SCREEN$, SGN, SIN, SQR, STEP, STR$, TAB, TAN, THEN, TO, USR, VAL$, VERIFY

Statements/commands found exclusively on the ZX81, TS1000 and TS1500 are:

FAST, SCROLL, SLOW, UNPLOT

Timex BASIC, used on the Spectrum-compatibles TS2048 and TS2068, has the following 6 keywords on top of the ordinary Sinclair BASIC ones:

DELETE, FREE, ON ERR, RESET, SOUND, STICK

Notes

  1. AND, NOT, and OR are logical operators.
  2. CAT, CLOSE#, ERASE, FORMAT, MOVE, and OPEN# are Microdrive-related commands/statements.

Referenses

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