Go where no BASIC interpreter has gone before! GFABASIC.ARC on your START disk.

Since its introduction, GFA BASIC has been the BASIC of choice-and to a large degree the programming language of choice-in the ST community. And no wonder GFA is a powerful interpreted BASIC. It gives you easy access to GEM features, such as drop-down menu bars, to give your programs a professional look. GFA is a structured language; it lets you call procedures by name and has a full array of looping commands. What's more, the GFA editor will automatically indent your code and check for syntax errors as you type. And now START is happy to bring you this interpreter-a $59.95 value-on your START disk!

To use the GFA BASIC ver. 2.0 interpreter, copy the file GFABASIC.ARC onto a blank, formatted disk and unARC the file, following the disk instructions elsewhere in this issue. This new disk will contain the interpreter itself (GFABASIC.PRG), the run-only program (GFABASRO.PRG) that lets you share your BASIC programs with friends who don't own a copy of the interpreter and a quick reference text file (GFABASIC.TXT) you can print or show from the Desktop or load into your favorite text editor or word processor. Use the same procedure to un-ARC GFADEMOS.ARC, this file contains demos which will help you explore the power of GFA BASIC.

Although MichTron is still providing customer support for GFA BASIC ver. 2.0, START has been supplementing that with our Programming in BASIC column began in our Summer 1988 issue. Now is the time to go through your back issues and improve your programming using our tools and tips.

From Summer 1988 to October 1988 we ran a three-part series on generating and using dialog boxes in GFA BASIC; a sample program (DIALOG.PRG) is on October's disk. In November, we ran the Putmaker which lets you grab a portion of a picture, save it to disk, and later load it into your BASIC program for flashy title screens. In December we had a double-header: the Menu Builder and Generalized Input Routines. The Menu Builder let you design drop-down menus as easy as 1-2-3. Generalized Input Routines let you make sophisticated input and menu screens to give you and your program's user the ultimate in flexibility. Finally, on this issue's disk is a cross-referencer that will save you hours of debugging time.

If you prefer to begin at the beginning, you can order MichTron's GFA BASIC manual directly from Antic at the low price of $9.95 (plus shipping and handling). And if you bought START without disk, you can order this issue's disk to get your copy of GFA BASIC at the same time.

Coming Soon
START will be continuing its support of GFA in future issues, when we'll publish MichTron's GFA Vector and GFA Object, which let you create and animate 3D objects and then incorporate them in your programs.

PRODUCTS MENTIONED

GFA BASIC ver. 2.0 manual, $9.95 + $3.50 shipping and handling. Antic's Disk Desk, 544 Second St., San Francisco, CA 94107, (800) 234-7001.