Keeping Your Work

You've built a title card worth keeping. But switch the Spectrum off and it's gone — the program lives in memory, and memory clears at the power switch. Two keywords fix that: SAVE writes your program somewhere lasting, and LOAD reads it back.

The program worth keeping

  10 BORDER 1
  20 PAPER 1
  30 INK 6
  40 CLS
  50 PRINT AT 8, 11; "MEET BASIC"
  60 PRINT AT 10, 7; "a Spectrum primer"

SAVE and LOAD

To keep it, give it a name and save it:

SAVE "title"

The whole program — every line — is written out under the name title. Switch off, come back later, and bring it home with:

LOAD "title"

LOAD reads the program back into memory exactly as it was. Type RUN and it's running again, without retyping a line. (SAVE and LOAD are keywords like any other — on the Spectrum, single keypresses in command mode.)

Tape, then and now

On a real 1982 Spectrum, "somewhere lasting" meant a cassette tape. SAVE sent the program out as sound — a screech you could hear — onto an ordinary audio cassette, and LOAD read that sound back, stripes rippling across the border while it loaded. It was slow, and not always reliable; a crease in the tape could cost you the lot.

In an emulator there's no cassette: SAVE writes a file, LOAD reads it, and it's instant. The keywords are identical — you're learning the real thing — but you're spared the wait and the wow-and-flutter. When you save your title card and load it back, you're doing exactly what a Spectrum owner did in 1982, minus the screech.

When it doesn't work

• LOAD found nothing. The name must match what you saved. LOAD "title" won't find a program saved as game.
• It saved the program, but not the screen. SAVE "name" saves the program, not the picture it draws. Run it after loading to see the title card again.
• Nothing happened on real tape. Saving and loading from a cassette needs the tape running at the right moment. The emulator removes that dance.

Before and after

You started with a program that vanished at the power switch and finished able to keep it — saved under a name, loaded back whole. The idea underneath: SAVE "name" stores your program so it outlives the machine being switched off; LOAD "name" brings it back.

Try this

• Save and reload. Save the title card, reset the machine, load it back, and RUN it.
• Two versions. Save it once, change a colour, and save it under a second name. Now you have both.
• Name it well. A program you'll want next week deserves a name you'll recognise.

What you've learnt

• Memory clears when the machine is switched off; SAVE and LOAD keep your work.
• SAVE "name" stores the program; LOAD "name" reads it back, ready to RUN.
• On real hardware it's tape (slow, audible); in an emulator it's an instant file — same keywords either way.
• SAVE keeps the program, not the picture; run it to see the result again.

What's next

You can write, run, colour, sound, animate, and save a Sinclair BASIC program. One skill left — the one that separates getting it done from getting stuck. In Unit 15 we learn to read the report line and find out why a program is wrong.