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Was P. shorthand for PRINT .? No idea what the other two commands do I think *OPT was for addressing a serial port or the screen but my memory is very hazy.

BBC BASIC on the original RISC PC was my first experience writing code. I think that machine is still in my parents' garage along with the 6 volume BBC BASIC reference manual.

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Yes, in BASIC you could enter keywords abbreviated with a . to save typing. The tokeniser would turn it into the byte or two representing PRINT ready for it to be interpreted.

I think you're thinking of the four volume RISC OS Programmers' Manual, plus slim index, that came in a big white cardboard sleeve. Augmented later by a Volume 5 of changes with later OS versions to save re-printing costs. BASIC itself was introduced in the User Guide that came with the machine IIRC and had a one-volume reference manual of its own at additional cost.

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