Software - LOS-96

LOS-96 : Loadable Operating System for 96K

The model 8032 was supplied with Commodore BASIC 4.0, when a 64K expansion board was added, either by the user, or by Commodore, to make an 8096, the ROM BASIC could still only use the first 32K of RAM. For the German market, Commodore released a loadable version of the Operating System and an enhanced version of BASIC on disk, called simply, LOS-96.

LOS-96 was developed in Germany and as far as I know, any documentation is in the German language. I am unaware of the manual having been translated into English - unless you know better?

The most useful information in English that I have found on LOS-96 is located on this webpage.

A transcribed version of the original manual (in German) is available from cbm.6502.org.

Since this version of BASIC has itself to be loaded into some of the RAM, then the "96" in the title is potentially a little confusing, the program itself takes up around 24K and is loaded into the original 32K of RAM and uses up to 32K of the expansion board RAM for BASIC programs and 32K for variables.

LOS-96 contained 17 additional commands and functions. These included ELSE, for IF ... THEN ... ELSE, and USING, for PRINT USING.

LOS-96 introduced a degree of incompatibility with BASIC 4.0 as LOS-96 stored its programs at $8000, in the additional memory, rather than in conventional memory at $040. LOS could relocate programs, so moving up to LOS was simple but it was more difficult to transfer programs back to a standard PET.¹

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