COUNT  <  5
   ^
   |
   +----- holds a 5

More Practice with Less

Here is the modified program:

' Loop with LESS THAN ending test
'
LET COUNT = 0            'Statement 1
'
DO WHILE COUNT  < 5      'Statement 2
  PRINT COUNT            'Statement 3
  LET COUNT = COUNT + 1  'Statement 4
LOOP 
END

When it runs it will print out:

0
1
2
3
4

COUNT starts out at 0, and since 0<5 is true, the loop body is executed, and "0" is printed. The loop body is executed 4 more times until finally COUNT is changed to 5 in Statement 4.

Since 5 < 5 is FALSE, the loop body is not executed, and "5" is not printed out.

It takes practice to get these things right. Here is the same program, but now with yet another change:

' Loop with LESS THAN ending test
'
LET COUNT = 2            'Statement 1
'
DO WHILE COUNT  < 5      'Statement 2
  PRINT COUNT            'Statement 3
  LET COUNT = COUNT + 1  'Statement 4
LOOP 
END