kommissar

v0_99.txtXOP2_loader.txtsprite_example.txt Finally got the Mini-Memory line-by-line assembler working on a bare console (in the simulator) and would appreciate it if someone could check for me that it works on actual hardware. Actually I have tested it with a cassette player but I am most interested in learning if it indeed works on a system with a disk drive. Again, the program listed in v0_99.txt should be run from TI Basic with no cartridge plugged in or other hardware enhancements. If anyone is so masochistic as to actually type it in by hand you must enter the line numbers of the REM statements in the order shown (from highest to lowest) otherwise the program will not execute. Refer to the TI line-by-line assembler documentation for how to use it. If I haven't introduced any defects this should work almost exactly the same way. Some changes are that labels may now be up to six characters long instead of two, the assembled program is converted to a TI Basic program (that uses something similar to the Playground loader to operate), and several other cosmetic changes. An important change is that three labels are "pre-undefined" at startup; ENTRY, ALPHA, and OMEGA. Before giving the END directive you must define ALPHA and OMEGA to be the first address of your assembled code and the address _after_ the last address of your assembled code, respectively. ENTRY is the address where program execution begins. The smallest example is something like: AORG >2000 ALPHA EQU $ ENTRY JMP ENTRY OMEGA EQU $ END When you run the resulting program it will, obviously, just do nothing. After giving the END directive and pressing enter (assuming there are no unresolved references) the program will return to the TI Basic environment with a program present that you can list, save to cassette (and hopefully also to disk) and/or run. I'm attaching an example program that can be typed in to the assembler that should just put 32 random sprites moving in all directions. I'm also attaching a brief description of the page loader the line-by-line assembler (and the code it produces) uses. I'll get around to documenting all this better soon.

I forgot to test it with extended basic, not sure how robust it is with different configurations. After enthusing endlessly to my coworkers (most of whom weren't born when I got my TI) about an "escape from the sandbox" it turned out that one of them had a website with tons of TI-99/4A cartridge ROMs plus two TI computers at home. He brought one in (foolishly got rid of mine in the 90s) and I laboriously typed in the whole program (this is before I found the oldcs1 utility). Anyway, here's some source code used to re-make the lines program. You can do a lot ~110 bytes at a time linesBasic.zip.zip

I just noticed playground a couple months ago after downloading a newer copy of classic99. Amazing!! Congratulations to James Abbatiello and Harry Wilhelm. What a difference this would have made 35 years ago. I tinkered with the loader a little bit to make a program that could be typed in by hand, and here is the result - the Mini-Memory Module lines demonstration program for TI Basic on a bare console. If anyone is interested I'll upload the source code later. linesBasic.txt