Radio Shack TRS-80 Model II Reference Manual page 23

Model II TRSDOS
Entering a Command
Whenever the
TRSDOS READY
prompt is displayed, you can type in a
command, up to 80 characters. If the command line is less than 80 characters
(as is usually true), you must press
IMWfi]
to signify end-of-line.
TRSDOS
will then "take" the command.
For example, type:
CLS
liilmWiI
and
TRSDOS
will clear the Display.
Whenever you type in a line,
TRSDOS
follows this procedure:
First it looks to see if what you've typed is the name of a
TRSDOS
command. If
it is,
TRSDOS
executes it immediately.
If what you typed is not a
TRSDOS
command, then
TRSDOS
will check to see if
it's the name of a program file on one of the drives.
When searching for a file,
TRSDOS
follows the sequence drive 0, drive 1, etc.
- unless you include an explicit drive specification with the file name
(described later on).
IfTRSDOS finds a matching program file, it will load and execute the file.
Otherwise, you'll get an error message.
Keyaheads
TRSDOS also allows keyaheads of up to
80
characters. This means you can type in
the next command while previous ones are being executed.
Note: A keyahead will not be displayed until TRSDOS or the application program is
ready to interpret it.
Command Syntax
Command syntax is the general form of a command, like the grammar of an
English sentence. The syntax tells you how to put keywords (like D IR, LIST,
and CREATE) together with the necessary parameters for each keyword. In
this book, we present general syntax inside gray boxes, so they're easy to
recognize.
There are three general command formats:
1. N
0-
file commands
2. One-file commands
3. Two-file commands
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