Basically Useful Basic

A Quick-Fix Approach To Calculating Tables

Edward Heite
Camden-Wyoming, DE

Some programs that purport to solve simple problems are, in themselves, too complicated to justify the effort of keying them in. A quickie program should, by definition, be simple and to the point. In my work as an archaeologist, I am often called upon to convert archaic units of measurement to modern units. Old surveys, for example, are expressed in "poles" or "perches", which are 16½ feet long.

To create a quickie conversion table from poles to feet, I wrote this jiffy program:

5 OPEN 1, 4, 0
6 PRINT # 1, CHR$(147)
10 FOR F = l TO 320
20 R = F*16.5
30 PRINT#1, F "POLES EQUAL" R "FEET."
40 NEXT F
50 CLOSE 1
60 END

Program 1.

1 POLES EQUAL	16.5   FEET.
2 POLES EQUAL 	33   FEET.
3 POLES EQUAL	49.5   FEET.
4 POLES EQUAL	66   FEET.
5 POLES EQUAL	82.5   FEET.
6 POLES EQUAL	99   FEET.
7 POLES EQUAL	115.5   FEET.
8 POLES EQUAL	132   FEET.
9 POLES EQUAL	148.5   FEET.
10 POLES EQUAL	165   FEET.
11 POLES EQUAL	181.5   FEET.
12 POLES EQUAL	198   FEET.
13 POLES EQUAL	214.5   FEET.

My 2022 printer obediently produced a table to convert poles to feet, from one pole to 320, which is a mile. It's a totally unremarkable program; there are no fancy columns, headings, or symbols.

But such fancy programming would have been time-consuming, and would have defeated the initial purpose of providing a quick chart. Since the program is so short, it can be typed for each use, more quickly than it could be loaded from tape.

For those who must frequently calculate conversion tables, a library of quickie programs can be kept on Rolodex cards, ready for instant reference.