Atari XL

16
The A tar; XL Handbook
You can use the ESC key in a similar way to insert
cursor controls, INSERT, DELETE BACK SPACE
and TAB actions into PRINT commands. The ESC
key affects only the next key to be pressed, so to
enter a sequence of commands, you must type, for
example:
PRINT "[ESC] [CLEAR] [ESC] [CONTROL/UP]
In the rest of this book we will, where possible, use
symbols such as l' to represent the typing of ESC
and a control character.
If you want to display the control symbols on the
screen, pressing ESC twice will produce an ESC
control character to precede the control character
symbol to be displayed.
MULTIPLE COMMANDS
You can put more than one instruction in one
command if you separate the instructions with
colons (:). Try this:
PRINT "3+4=": PRINT 3+4
Or this:
PRINT ",,"THIS": PRINT "IS": PRINT
"AN": PRINT "ATARI XL": PRINT
"COMPUTER"
It doesn't matter if you run over the end of the line
on the screen, as long as there are no more -than
three screen lines of characters (including the
spaces) in the command. A beep will sound to warn
you as you approach the maximum number of
characters.
Entering a number of instructions together like
this can get very cumbersome. In the next chapter