Re: Pointer at the start of a BASIC line: what good is it?

> On 2021-10-30, at 22:55, Rhialto <rhialto_at_falu.nl> wrote:
> 
>> But? the lines table is (nomen omen) basically needed for the screen
>> editor, which had to adapt to 40 columns and differentiate between
>> "logical" and "physical" lines, isn't it? BASIC AFAIR doesn't care, as
>> long as the program/lines structure remains correct. Please someone
>> correct me if I am wrong here. It's been some time since I used to
>> POKE oversized BASIC lines into my 64 ;-)
> 
> The limitation is on the length of the input that you can type, not on
> how long this will be when tokenized.

That's what I am referring to. I still recall building some oversized BASIC lines by POKEing appropriate values directly into RAM. Next to the more common method of using BASIC keywords abbreviations, which – once expanded – could easily exceed the _editor's_ limit of 80 characters.

So unless Ruud wants to build also a BASIC "screen editor" mimicking the C64 one's behaviour, I see no point/problem with lines longer than 80 chars. That is, until...

> There is probably a limit of 255 bytes somewhere though.

... which I can neither confirm nor deny as I simply don't remember whether I even tried to get over 255/256 bytes per BASIC line.