Date   : Sat, 20 Nov 2010 22:52:58 -0000
From   : jumbos.bazzar@... (Mark Haysman)
Subject: BBC file formats

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "J.G.Harston" <jgh@...>


> Steve Fewell wrote:
>> So, this begs the question as to how the programmer(s) tested the  work 
>> ...
>> I guess they would run the source BASIC program to create the
>> machine code on disk and then transfer the disk to another machine
>> to run the machine code, and then transfer the disk back to update
>> and save the source program!
>
> Write code, assemble code, save code, run code, test.
> Ctrl-Break
> Amend code, assemble code, save code, run code, test.
> Ctrl-Break
> Amend code, assemble code, save code, run code, test.
> Ctrl-Break
> etc...

BITD day didn't professional software houses have memory emulators and 
development systems? I definately seem to recall seeing one for a C64. It's 
where a more powerful system is used to write the code, and assemble it, 
then the code is transferred to a memory which is linked into the main 
machine, so the main machine runs it as if it had just loaded it. Not only 
makes it quick to make changes, but also allows the dev system to monitor 
memory and other things whilst the slave program is running.

To a certain extent, that is the way I wrote RamFS, using a Dataman S4 as a 
ROM emulator. I used Beebasm on a PC to assemble the code which was 
downloaded to the Dataman. This was then set to emulate a 27128 and a cable 
plugged into a Beeb ROM socket. It made testing and fault finding a much 
quicker process than writing the ROM in assembler on the Beeb itself.

Mark.