From: arne@vajhoej.dk   
      
   On 1/31/2025 6:42 PM, Craig A. Berry wrote:   
   > On 1/31/25 4:05 PM, Dan Cross wrote:   
   >> Treating -1 as true in BASIC seems rather common, from the quick   
   >> survey I did; I speculate that this is almost certainly due to   
   >> the bit representation of -1 having all bits set, while in BASIC   
   >> the integer type is (usually?) signed, thus -1 on a two's   
   >> complement machine.  I wonder what the original DTSS BASIC did?   
   >   
   > I had a quick look at:   
   >   
   > https://ia601901.us.archive.org/34/items/bitsavers_dartmouthB_3679804/   
   > BASIC_4th_Edition_Jan68_text.pdf   
   >   
   > and didn't see an obvious answer, though I didn't read the whole thing   
   > and could've missed something.  The exact values of true and false might   
   > well have been considered an implementation detail that should not be   
   > relied on.   
      
   Or maybe true and false did not exist.   
      
   I noted that the manual defined IF THEN as:   
      
   IF [formula] [relation] [formula] THEN [line number]   
      
   and not:   
      
   IF [formula] THEN [line number]   
      
   Arne   
      
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