as previously, the file will appear colourless. When using BANK as a LOAD modifier, we need to remember that NextBASIC and NextZXOS do not care what type of data is being loaded. As such the BANK modifier is also used to load NextBASIC programs that make the use of banks. More about that below when we examine SAVE.

SAVE

Our computer's memory lacks permanence; whatever is stored inside it during operation disappears when we turn the power off. We need some means to store the information onto a medium that can hold it even when the power is off; this comes in the form of the SAVE keyword.

It follows the exact syntax of LOAD that we examined in the previous section and uses the same modifiers and parameters with an additional LINE modifier. There are a few differences from LOAD in behaviour however and we'll examine these immediately. Typing:

SAVE ""

will produce an F Invalid file name, 0:1 error even when our default drive is T: (tape). That's simply because even on a tape, files NEED to be named, otherwise we wouldn't be able to identify them!

As with LOAD, setting the filespec to a drive name (for example c:) will switch all NextBASIC file retrieval and storage operations to that drive from that point forward so for example:

SAVE "m:"

will make drive m: the default drive and won't actually store any information anywhere.

As we saw in examples in the previous section, SAVE filespec without a modifier (assuming filespec is a string specifying more than just a drive name) will save the NextBASIC program currently in memory onto the default drive or the drive/folder we specify. If however this filename already exists in the location specified, NextZXOS will first create a backup file made up from the original filename and then append the type .bak to it.

We will have to skip ahead again to see the results of our operations by using CAT (for CATalogue) so let's quickly do some typing:

SAVE "c:"

10  PRINT "Hello"

and then:

SAVE "hello.bas"

followed by

CAT "hello*.*"

(Never mind what the *.* means, we'll examine that later).
Your screen will display the following:

hello.bas                 1K

  980M free

Now perform the save again, again followed by CAT "hello*.*" and you'll see:

hello.bas                 1K
hello.bas.bak             1K