WAIT cycles [CYCLES] [PARALLEL]
   WAIT ticks TICK
   WAIT ticks TICKS
   WAIT time MILLISECOND
   WAIT time MILLISECONDS
   WAIT time MS

Pauses execution for a certain period of time. The WAIT statement can be accompanied by a suffix statement, which indicates the unit of measurement of the time to wait. The suffix CYCLES can be used to indicate CPU cycles, TICKS to indicate the number of vertical blanks at 50Hz (PAL) or 60Hz (NTSC), and MS (MILLISECONDS) to indicate a number of milliseconds.

The pause is of the “busy” type, so the entire program is suspended, except for the timer-related mechanisms but including the multithreading mechanism. To avoid this, you can follow the instruction with the PARALLEL keyword, which allows parallel processes to continue executing while waiting for the time.

The PARALLEL keyword can only be used with waits related to CYCLES.

  WAIT #42 CYCLES

See also the following example files:

• control_uncond_jumps_01.bas
• control_uncond_jumps_02.bas
• control_returning_01.bas
• control_returning_02.bas

 Wt

• Atari (400/800)
• Atari XL/XE
• Commodore 128 (MOS 8502)
• Commodore 128 (Zilog Z80)
• Commodore 64
• Commodore 64+REU
• TRS-80 Color Computer
• TRS-80 Color Computer 3
• ColecoVision
• Amstrad CPC 664
• Dragon 32
• Dragon 64
• Thomson MO5
• Thomson MO5
• Olivetti Prodest PC128
• Commodore PLUS/4
• SEGA SC-3000
• SEGA SG-1000
• VG-5000
• Commodore VIC-20
• ZX Spectrum 48

If you have encountered a problem using this command, if you think there is a bug or the explanation is unclear, please open an issue for this keyword on GitHub. Thank you!