Apple IIe - Page 103

I
I
Apple
BASIC
Reference
Guide
103
In
the
preceding
example,
l
the
STEP
value
is
-1
so
the
counter
is
decremented
until
its
value
is
-2.
,
FRE
•
Applesoft
o
Integer
The
FRE
function
returns
the
numb~r
of
free
bytes
in
memory.
Configuration
FRE
(argument)
argument
can
be
any
legal
expression.
It
makes
no
difference
what
the
argument
is.
If
the
amount
of
free
bytes exceeds 32767,
the
FRE
function
will
return
a
negative
number.
By
adding
65536
to
this
number,
you
can
compute
the
actUal number-Of
free
bytes.
When
FRE
is
used, a
housekeeping
will
be
performed
before
the
function
returns
the
number
of
free
bytes.
Housekeeping
is
a
process
where
BASIC
gathers
all useful
data
by
freeing
any
memory
which
was
once
used
for
strings,
but
which
is
currently
unused.
Memor~
\
for
strings
becomes
unused
when
the
string's
\
length
cha,nges.
Example
10
A=
FRE
(0)
20
IF
A <
0
THEN
A=
A+65536
30
PRINT
"NUMBER
OF
FREE
BYTES
IS";A
40
END
]RUN
[Ret]
NUMBER OF
FREE
BYTES
IS
36272