Atari 400 User Manual page 61

The RETURN key is an example of a key which
does not put a character on the screen. When
you are using the BASIC language in your Atari,
the RETURN key acts as an ENTER key. You use
it to enter information into the part of the com-
puter that actually does the thinking (or calcu-
lating). As you type, letters and numbers appear
on the screen, but the computer doesn't try to
do anything with those characters until you
press the RETURN key. This means that pressing
RETURN does more than tell the computer to
begin a new line; it also tells the computer to act
on whatever information is in the line that you
just typed.
The computer recognizes only a very specific set
of words called
commands.
For example, if you
typed in the command to LOAD a program and
then pressed the RETURN key. the computer
would load the program from your cartridge,
cassette, or disk into the computer's memory
You'll learn some of the BASIC commands in the
section on using the BASIC language.
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