SpectraTERM 1.0

SpectraTERM is a small terminal program for the TS2068 and the Byte-Back modem. The loader announces “SpectraTERM 1.00 / TS2068/Byte-Back Modem”, and the code reads “SpectraTERM — Ver 1.00” and “© 1984, Spectrasoft Incorporated Licensed to Byte-Back Co.” It lets the TS2068 act as a simple terminal through the modem.

Program Analysis

The tape holds a 15-line BASIC loader, STERM, and the machine code, sterm, 850 bytes at 53248. The loader does CLEAR 40000, sets the colours, prints the title and “Loading…”, loads the code and runs it with PRINT USR 53248. Lines 130–150 are the commands used to save the two parts.

Notable Techniques

• The whole terminal fits in 850 bytes. It includes its own keyboard table, the letters in the order of the keyboard’s half-rows (zxcvasdfgqwert12345…) followed by the symbol-shifted characters, which suggests it scans the keyboard directly; the table includes characters such as { | } ~ [ \ ] that need symbol shift on the TS2068.
• Because the code is started with PRINT USR rather than RANDOMIZE USR, the value it returns is printed when it exits to BASIC.