Date   : Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:15:03 +0100
From   : pete@... (Pete Turnbull)
Subject: A500 development ROMs

On 23/10/2008 19:56, Jules Richardson wrote:
> Pete Turnbull wrote:

>> Arthur wasn't written in BASIC, it was written partly in ARM assembler 
>> and partly in Modula-2 (and maybe some C).
> 
> I believe I have the source to Arthur somewhere with me - I'll try and find it 
> and confirm later, but as I recall it was just m2 and assembler (I don't 
> remember seeing any C). Acorn seemed to be going through a real m2 phase about 
> that point (I think ARX and Panos are both heavily m2-based, too)

Panos possibly, ARX I'd be less sure about but I never saw it.  I know 
that the last thing to be written and maintained in M2 was stuff for the 
PC emulator.

>>  Arthur was not the OS on the A500 development systesm, either.
> 
> I still suspect it was just Brazil in ROM, and from there you could load 
> whatever you wanted from disk - be it Arthur or something else entirely.

That would make complete sense.  The A500 was purely a development 
system for the Archimedes range, and as such was used to test and 
develop the modules that made up Arthur, one by one.  In the early 
stages of development it was hooked up to a BBC as a second processor, 
so the Beeb would provide all or part of the I/O -- and I still have one 
of the Tube podules that was used for that purpose.  Later, when they 
could be used as machines in their own right, many of the A500s were 
loaned to software developers.

-- 
Pete                                           Peter Turnbull
                                               Network Manager
                                               University of York