Date   : Thu, 01 Apr 1993 11:04:34 BST
From   : u9105611@...
Subject: Teco ...

It's not often that I am defeatist, but sometimes it's just not worth
pursuing something - for instance, TECO.

Having managed to assemble all ~5000 lines on source code, I have
discovered that the object file was 21.6K long - and that's before I added
any of the code necessary to allow it to work on a BBC - aaarrrrrrrgggggghhh..

Assuming the code was loaded in at &E00, and you had shadow memory, that
leaves 6.8K of memory free - not including the extra bits needed to cope
with file I/O etc.

Loading in at &1900 would leave just 4.1K free - probably not enough to
code the file handling.

In theory, it could be made into a Language ROm - using workspace for its
buffers etc ... but it would be a HUGE job.

If anyone else wants to try to get TECO up and running, a copy of
Alan Phillips' (of pdsoft.lancs/kermit fame) ASSEMBLER is a must - though
ADE's assembler would do. Split the source into files of ~800 lines each,
and chain each one from the previous one ... with a few changes:
             .BYTE => DFB
             .WORD => DFW
             =     => EQU
it assembles no problem ... except for the RAD40 bit
                            and it would never run ...

Any comments, suggestions, etc, will be gratefully received - as will
any documentation on TECO (the on-line help from your local mainframe
would do nicely). Our VAX at Queen's has a TECO editor, but the 
help is dire ... it list about 6 commands - not including EX for EXIT.
If anyone could email me any more detail about the commands, I would
be grateful - I am tempted to try using it on the VAX for a while.
The 6502 version seems to include a huge variety of commands, but
their function is often labelled in the source, nor is their function
obvious from the code.


However, I suppose 'vi' could be coded ...
                                       ... sometime!

Alan Meban
u9105611@...
        @[143.117.254.4]

af341@...

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