Ill. The Mysterious (?) Art Of Programming; Foreword; What Is A Program; How Do I Program - Sharp PC-1500 Instruction Manual

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III.
THE MYSTERIOUS
(?)
ART OF PROGRAMMING
The art of programming has heen needlessly shrouded in a veil of mystery for so long that most
people
associate it with wizardry or
mathematica l genius. The fact is that no special talent for
pulling rabbits out of hats
is required. Nor is it
necessary that you be adept at solving partial
differential equations. Your greatest assets will be your patience, your logical rea1oning abilities,
your atter>tion to detail, and your eagerness to learn. A willingness to accept challenges is also
useful (we won't kid you: at times programming is very challenging. that's the fun of itl .
Programming is an art, and as such requires a Ii ttlc skill. a little training, and a lot of practice.
It
is not our intent in
this manual to make a seasoned programmer out of you. We
\-Viii
familiarize
you with the basic operations and concepts of programming. To be a competent programmer
requires more, just as good driving involves more than knowing how t<> steer and
sh ~ft
gear-s.
Many good books on programming already exist and we strongly urge you to patronize you
local computer dealer and library, Several good books on programming in general and the BASIC
language
in
particular, are listed in Appendix
F.
A. What Is A Program?
You may br. surprised to discover that a program is just a set of instructions that the computer
follows one at a time. These instructions must
b~
given to the computer in a language it "under·
stands". The SHARP PC-1500 "speaks" a dialect of BASIC, a widely used and very popular
programming language. Like other languages, BASIC has a special vocabulary and grammar
rules which are combined to form statements. It you speak to SHA HP "ungrammatically", or in
unfamiliar vocabulary, the computer will alert you to your error. But it
i~
not
d ifficult
to
correctly instruct SHARP. The BASIC language was originally developed to teach programming
principles
and
many
of
its statements contain English words and other familiar sy1nbols.
B. How Do I Program?
As
you
use SHARP to
pro~Jram,
you will foll<>w a certain routine. The instructions which make
up a program are e·ntered in the PROgram mode. These instructions are knovin as "statements"
in the BASIC language. To begin execution ol th. e se statements, it is r>ecessary to switch to the
RUN mode, and then to instruct SHARP to pro.:eed by typing the RUN command. For you
"experts", who already have the two programs of Chapter O under your bel t. this will be familiar.
For those who are pecking ahead, let's try entering .and running a program:
Switch to the PROgram mode and issue the
BAS IC
"command" (more on commands vs.
statements later
I:
This will er•se any previous statements which may be left in memory. Type the following line:
Program Listing:
10 PR INT "GOOD SHOW! ..
Keystrokes:
rn oo mm co
Ci.iJ CD
1 '""'1
c:::i
m
CQJ CQJ CQJ , ...
c•l
rn m rn oo
1 '"'" 1
co
IT-"n c::::i , •• , •• ,
26
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