Non-ASCII garbage does not result in a syntax error.

[Anonymous]

It seems you can type basically any string in the BASIC prompt, as long as it doesn't contain an ASCII character. Even if it doesn't make syntactical sense, PC-BASIC will not throw a "syntax error" message if this happens. As an example, using --codepage=ruscii:

фыва                                                                            
Ok                                                                              
abcфыва                                                                         
Syntax error                                                                    
Ok                                                                              
bqqwdqd                                                                         
Syntax error                                                                    
Ok                                                                              
фыв 142                                                                         
Syntax error                                                                    
Ok                                                                              
фыв abc                                                                         
Syntax error                                                                    
Ok

As you can see, after the first string is entered, PC-BASIC merely responds with "Ok", even though the entered text is not a valid BASIC statement.

[Rob Hagemans]

Hi, thanks for reporting - this is the correct behaviour, though. Only printable ASCII characters (with values between 32 and 127) lead to Syntax Error in GW-BASIC. The graphical characters below 32 and the codepage characters above 128 are simply ignored if entered by themselves on the console, regardless of whether or not it is a valid statement. Since the Cycillic characters you type are mapped to character codes >128, they do not lead to Syntax Error.