This is the heart of the game. Each pass round the loop is one line of input from the player:

1. 6DCD prints the '>' prompt and reads a line of text into the input buffer at 6FF0. If the player types nothing for a while, 7240 types WAIT on their behalf, so time passes in The Hobbit even if you do not.

2. The token buffer at 7093 is cleared (70D9), and then 6E8E is called repeatedly to turn the line into tokens, one per word. Each token is two bytes, stored high byte first: the high byte is the word's class (see 6040) in its top four bits plus the top four bits of the word's 12-bit dictionary offset; the low byte is the bottom eight bits of the offset.

3. Double quotes get special treatment (from 6D2F). A quote comes back from 6E8E as class $90 with an offset of 0. The flag at $B60B records whether we are inside a quotation. At an opening quote the flag is set. At a closing quote the flag is cleared and, unless the previous token was already a comma ($A0) or full stop ($B0), a full-stop token is inserted before the quote token, so that whatever was said to a character ends like a complete sentence.

4. Tokens are stored until the end-of-line token ($C0). A token of class $D0 means the word was not in the dictionary: the game jumps to 6D99, which prints a message saying it does not know the word and quotes the word back from the input line (up to the next space or quote, using the pointer at B5CB). If the line ends with a quotation still open, 7FF9 is called to complain and the line is thrown away.

5. 7C4F parses the tokens into an action, and 8351 executes it and lets the rest of the world take its turn. If the line contained more than one command (separated by AND, THEN, commas or full stops), the loop at 6D8D goes back into the parser for the next one while the flag at $B5F6 is set.

The main loop can also be entered at 6D17 with the Z flag set, from the '@' key (see 6E71), which re-parses the tokens left over from the previous line: in other words, it repeats the last command.