on a huge drafting board, rather than using the costly CAD-CAM system used for the previous board, and the new design worked. Earlier Apple III units came with a built-in real time clock. The hardware, however, would fail after prolonged use. Assuming that National Semiconductor would test all parts before shipping them, Apple did not perform this level of testing. Apple was soldering chips directly to boards and could not easily replace a bad chip if one was found. Eventually, Apple solved this problem by removing the real-time clock from the Apple III's specification rather than shipping the Apple III with the clock pre-installed, and then sold the peripheral as a level 1 technician add-on. BASIC Microsoft and Apple each developed their own versions of BASIC for the Apple III. Apple III Microsoft BASIC was designed to run on the CP/M platform available for the Apple III. Apple Business BASIC shipped with the Apple III. Donn Denman ported Applesoft BASIC to SOS and reworked it to take advantage of the extended memory of the Apple III. Both languages introduced a number of new or improved features over Applesoft BASIC. Both languages replaced Applesoft's single-precision floating-point variables using 5-byte storage with the somewhat-reduced-precision 4-byte variables, while also adding a larger numerical format. Apple III Microsoft BASIC provides double-precision floating-point variables, taking 8 bytes of storage, while Apple Business BASIC offers an extra-long integer type, also taking 8 bytes for storage. Both languages also retain 2-byte integers, and maximum 255-character strings. Other new features common to both languages include: Incorporation of disk-file commands within the language. Operators for MOD and for integer-division. An optional ELSE clause in IF...THEN statements. HEX$() function for hexadecimal-format output. INSTR function for finding a substring within a string. PRINT USING statement to control format of output. Apple Business BASIC had an option, in addition to directly specifying the format with a string expression, of giving the line number where an IMAGE statement gave the formatting expression, similar to a FORMAT statement in FORTRAN. Some features work differently in each language: Microsoft BASIC additional features function to replace Applesoft's command. statement to input an entire line of text, regardless of punctuation, into a single string variable. and statements to automatically direct output to paper. and statements to left- or right-justify a string expression within a given string variable's character length. function for output, and "&"- or "&O"-formatted expressions,