🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <25AEA403.23275@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca> johns@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Conan the Barbarian) writes:
>	What about programs like GFA BASIC, and some of the other GFA
>	stuff that was released on START issues?  Is that PD, or do I have
>	to buy a START disk?

GFA BASIC and the other GFA stuff on START disks are not PD.  The only part of
GFA BASIC which is distributable is the GFABASRO.PRG (the run-time program)
so that people can run GFA programs without having GFA.PRG.  You can't write
programs with the run-time program, only run them.

The GFA BASIC related programs on the START disks do not come with more than
rudimentary documentation, so you would probably have to buy a book which
described GFA BASIC 2.0 as well.  You can, of course, purchase version 3.0
of GFA BASIC, as well as the 3.0 compiler.  If all you want to do is fiddle
around a bit, you can get the January 1989 issue of START and the accompanying
disk for version 2.0.  If you want to do 'serious' work, you might wish to go
with version 3.0 -- or forget about BASIC and work with C instead...

(I don't mean to imply that 2.0 can't be used for 'serious' work, but the
lack of full documentation and the interpreter-only mode do make it harder on
the would-be programmer).

Re: START
The best thing to do is to read the descriptions of the disks in each issue
of START.  Some of the "second side" programs they've been including are
PD/Shareware, and most of them have already crossed the net and/or are
available on one of the net-accessible archives.  Over the past several months
START has included the BSTAT statistical package and AniST, as well as
ST Writer. 

-- David Paschall-Zimbel