IBM 5150 User Manual

Introduction
Your IBM Personal Computer has three versions of
BASIC. Cassette BASIC is built into your computer.
Disk BASIC and Advanced BASIC come to you on
your DOS Diskette.
BASIC is a programming language
that is used to write
programs-sets of instructions to tell your IBM
Personal Computer what it should do for you.
Cassette BASIC uses a cassette recorder to hold
program and data files. It cannot use diskettes.
Disk BASIC does everything Cassette BASIC does and
in
addition can use diskettes for files.
Advanced BASIC does everything that Cassette BASIC
and Disk BASIC do,
and more. It also has some
commands like CIRCLE, DRAW, and PAINT that let
you do some nifty graphics if you have the
Color/Graphics
Monitor Adapter. And it has the
PLAY statement for making your computer play
tunes.
You can find out more about the additional features of
all three versions of BASIC in Chapter I of the IBM
Personal Computer BASIC book.
Both Disk BASIC and Advanced BASIC run under DOS,
which means that DOS must be running before Disk
BASIC
or Advanced BASIC (or programs written in
Disk BASIC
or Advanced BASIC) can be started. They
use DOS to manage input from (reading) and output
to (writing) the various devices of your computing
system.
This section is
meant to familiarize you with enough
BASIC so that you can use the SAMPLES program (on
your DOS Diskette) and can run other BASIC programs
that you buy. The chapter also shows you how to enter
a very small BASIC program of your own.
BASIC
3-3

IBM 5150 Specifications

General

Brand	IBM
Model	5150
Category	Desktop
Language	English