Classic Computer Magazine Archive COMPUTE! ISSUE 56 / JANUARY 1985 / PAGE 10

POKEing Around

I'm a new ML programmer and would like to know what are the numbers you POKE into memory when entering the machine language parts of some BASIC programs?

Kenny Sumrall

Those numbers are the actual object code (the opcodes and operands) of the machine language program. Each machine language instruction has a value (opcode). This value is what the processor sees and executes.

After you write and debug your machine language program, you can use a utility program to turn the object code into a series of DATA statements. The BASIC program POKEs the numbers into memory, and they can then be executed with a SYS, USR, or CALL statement.