Payroll

This program calculates an employee’s gross pay based on hours worked, applying a standard overtime rule. For up to 40 hours, pay is computed at a flat rate of $7 per hour. Hours beyond 40 are paid at time-and-a-half ($10.50/hour). Entering a negative value for hours terminates the program via STOP at line 70. The program loops continuously via line 65, prompting for successive payroll entries until a negative sentinel value is entered.

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Program Analysis

Program Structure

The program is a short, self-contained loop with a single input/output cycle. It prompts for hours worked, branches based on the value entered, computes pay, prints the result, and repeats. A negative input value serves as a sentinel to exit the loop.

1. Lines 10–12: Prompt, accept, and echo the hours value.
2. Lines 15–20: Two conditional branches — exit on negative input, jump to overtime calculation if hours exceed 40.
3. Lines 30–40: Standard-time pay calculation (P = 7 * H), then skip to output.
4. Line 50: Overtime pay calculation with time-and-a-half for hours over 40.
5. Lines 60–65: Print result and loop back to line 10.
6. Line 70: STOP — reached only by negative input sentinel.

Pay Calculation Logic

The base rate is $7.00/hour. The two pay formulas used are:

Condition	Formula	Line
H ≤ 40	P = 7 * H	30
H > 40	P = 7 * 40 + 1.5 * 7 * (H - 40)	50

The overtime formula correctly pays the first 40 hours at the base rate and applies a 1.5× multiplier only to the excess hours. This is a textbook application of a piecewise pay function.

Key BASIC Idioms

• Sentinel value: A negative hours value (line 15) is used to signal end-of-data and branch to STOP, a common idiom when EOF detection is unavailable.
• Unconditional loop: GOTO 10 at line 65 creates an infinite loop, relying entirely on the sentinel to exit — there is no FOR/NEXT or conditional loop structure.
• Echo of input: Line 12 prints H immediately after input, providing visual confirmation of the entered value before processing.

Anomalies and Minor Issues

• Zero hours: An input of H = 0 is valid and will correctly return a pay of $0, though it may not be meaningful in practice.
• No input validation beyond sign check: Fractional or very large hour values are accepted without further bounds checking.
• Line 90 (RUN): A RUN statement following a SAVE is a common idiom to restart execution after saving, but since SAVE is on line 80 and STOP is on line 70, normal program flow never reaches line 80 — these lines are only reachable if the user manually runs them or if execution falls through in an unusual way.