INPUT stack lift: 32S vs. 42S

[Thomas Okken]

(10-20-2019 01:46 AM)rprosperi Wrote:  I honestly have been using a DM42/42S for so long to write '41 programs', I've forgotten the 41 didn't have INPUT, it just got by with 'String' PROMPT. How quaint...

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I incorrectly thought that the 32S came out after the 42S, but in fact it was 4 months earlier, so these 2 machines were being developed in parallel, both on the same SysRPL platform, so it is interesting that they chose to go 2 separate ways for this behavior.

Ha, yes, I have to play around with i41CX every now and then to refresh my memory. I think the last time I used an actual 41 was in the previous century.

Regarding divergent behaviors, even within the 42S things aren't consistent, with INPUT enabling stack lift but the matrix editor's cell movement commands disabling it, and the initial cell in EDIT and EDITN getting whatever stack lift state was in effect when the function was called. That last one has to be a bug, but the difference between the other two is interesting. There is so much functionality in the 42S, coding all that must have been a team effort, so are those differences deliberate, or was it just a matter of different programmers making different choices sometimes and not coordinating with each other? I'd love to have a chat with the 42S designers and get them talking about what that whole process was like.