Date   : Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:41:16 +0100
From   : rick@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: Basic6809 1.00

Phill Harvey-Smith wrote:

> Yeah if ASM programing teaches you one thing it's "save the bugger first" :)

Doesn't need to be asm... you can make quite a mess in C if your mind is 
contemplating your favourite actress rather than this boring stupid 
my-life-so-sucks array. :-) Them's the times you hope your IDE has an 
automatic save-before-run option.

Or... "subclassing" with Visual Basic. What they mean is hooking into 
various Windowsy vectors (like mouse moved, etc). If you should DARE to 
use the stop button instead of running through the shutdown-and-tidyup 
function, VB will keel over dead. Quite dead. Just "poof!" and its gone. 
Along with all your code modifications, if you didn't tell it to 
save-before-running.

I'll admit, it's far easier to slam the door in your face and enjoy the 
experience using assembler, but what really matters is loss of code 
rather than spectacularity of cockup. In which case, SO many languages 
qualify... :-)


> I guess my point was we don't have to so why should we be restricted by it ?

You aren't. That's why John's patched the >ARM< BASIC module.
                                            ^^^
A basic crap unexpanded A305 will offer you maybe 280Kish to play around 
in. I rather imagine these beasts, if they should turn up on eBay, would 
deserve to be called r at re! The average spec of an early RISC OS machine 
is 4Mb as that's what the MEMC could address, and multiple-MEMC designs 
are known to be somewhat tempermental.
The RiscPC era... Hell, the A7000ish Bush Internet Box has BASIC, has an 
8Mb SIMM, ought to be patchable. Sucky "keyboard" though. 8Mb up to 
128Mb is common. More is possible but it is not common as... well... it 
isn't Windows! I never hit a memory issue running a mere 32Mb in some 
half a decade of use! Expect to lose about 2-3Mb for all the modules, 
system workspace, and other behind-the-scenes crap. That should leave 
way more than sufficient to assemble some 6502 code.

So, you see, it isn't a limitation!


Under RISC OS, I write everything except C in !Edit (colourscheme 
yellow-on-blue). I use !Zap for C (colourised).

Under Windows, I tend to use the IDE's editor; however the various bits 
of 6502 code, as well as pretty much my entire website in the PC era, 
has been written by hand in MetaPad (a Notepad replacement). Under RISC 
OS, I used !Edit for 6502/website. I haven't programmed using my Beeb in 
 >2 decades. Why should I? I used to write (and BASIC tokenise) using 
!Edit on the A5000, then run the program on the BBC (both machines 
connected via Econet) and then curse as I did something ELSE that 
postdates the BBC BASIC in the Beeb. :-) It's a lot quicker and easier 
than the machine own line editor.


If my grasp of 6502 was worth a damn, I'd be extremely interested by 
John's new creation. It takes a step out, and frees the imagination. No 
longer do you have to be mindful of what will fit in the BBC along with 
the source program, you can - if you really want - hit it was an icky 
160K single-source file with daft variable names...
...you can start arguments with:
    IF (paris_hilton% > nicole_richie%)
:-)

It's possible, now, due to the greater space, the greater potential.
Not so much a restriction as a removal of what could be perceived as one.



Best wishes,

Rick.

-- 
Rick Murray, eeePC901 & ADSL WiFI'd into it, all ETLAs!
BBC B: DNFS, 2 x 5.25" floppies, EPROM prog, Acorn TTX
E01S FileStore, A3000/A5000/RiscPC/various PCs/blahblah...