identification.txt

BASIC VERSION IDENTIFICATION
============================

As of version 1.22.12, all builds of Matrix Brandy BASIC VI give an INKEY(-256)
value of &4D (or ASC("M"), decimal 77).

Therefore. this is a guarantted way fir a BASIC program to identify that it is
running on Matrix Brandy (as opposed to Acorn BBC BASIC on RISC OS, BBCSDL on
many other platforms) and can make assumptions based on this, including
access to SYS "Brandy_*" system calls.  On RISC OS, these are trapped and
handled internally, all other SYS calls are handed to the operating system,
on other platforms all SYS calls are handled internally and only a very small
subset of RISC OS calls are recognised and handled.

To further indentify what platform the program is running on, use the call
SYS "Brandy_Platform" TO osname$, cpu$, is64bit%, sdl%, mactype%, underlying%, pid%, ppid%

The "underlying%" value is the value of INKEY(-256) that used to be returned
prior to Matrix Brandy using its own value, for example &F9 on Linux, or a
value (ANDed with &F0) of &A0 on RISC OS. Therefore, you can assume graphics
availability if underlying% AND &F0 = &A0 or sdl% = 1.

(The 'tbrandy' build can also offer limited graphics via a Tektronix display
or emulator, this needs to be specifically enabled at runtime, Brandy has no
way to detect if it's running with a suitable terminal.)