Whycan't?; That Keyboard Looks Familiar - AMSTRAD cpc 6128 User Instruction

Whycan't?
With all the power of modern technology, users frequently wonder why even a
machine as advanced as the 6128 is apparently unable to perform tasks seen on any
TV set. Why for instance, can't a computer animate a picture of someone walking
across the screen in a natural fashion? - why do all computers represent movement
with 'matchstick' figures?
The answer is simple yet complex. The simple answer is that you must not be
beguiled into believing that the screen of your computer has anything of the subtlety
of the screen of a TV set. A television set operates using 'linear' information that can
describe a virtually infinite range of resolution between the extremes of light and
dark across all the colours of the spectrum. This process means that in computer
terms, the display 'memory' of a full TV picture is some twenty times greater than the
converted equivalent of a home computer display.
That's only part of the problem, since to animate this picture requires that this
enormous amount of memory must be processed at high speed (around 50 times each
second). It can be done - but only by machines that cost a few thousand times more
than a home computer, at least for the time being!
Until the price of high speed memory falls dramatically (it will eventually), small
computers have to make do with a relatively small amount of memory available to
control the screen display, which results in lower resolution, and jerkier movements.
Thoughtful hardware design and good programming can go a long way to making the
best of this situation, but we are still a fair way from cheap computers that can
reproduce flowing motions and lifelike pictures in the same way that even a moderate
animated cartoon can produce.
That keyboard looks familiar ....
Why can't you simply walk up to the computer and type a page of simple text into the
machine?
Don't be mislead by the fact that the computer looks like a typewriter with an
electronic display. The screen is not a piece of electronic paper - it's a 'command
console' - jargon which means that it simply provides you with the means of
communicating with the programming language (and the programs) in the machine
memory.
Until you tell it to the contrary, the computer will try and interpret all the characters
that you type at the keyboard as being program instructions. When you press the
[RETURN] key, the computer will look through what has been typed, and ifit doesn't
make sense to the built in BASIC, it will reject the 'input' with the comment:
Syntax error
Chapter 9 Page 4 At your leisure ....