Batari Basic Portable

[Primordial Ooze]

Are there any plans for a Batari BASIC portable? That means that you can run Batari BASIC on a usb stick without any type of setup required.

 

Thanks,

 

Primordial Ooze

[SeaGtGruff]

Are there any plans for a Batari BASIC portable? That means that you can run Batari BASIC on a usb stick without any type of setup required.

Great idea, but I don't think batari Basic itself would be the problem-- it would more likely be the program editor or IDE, as well as the emulator. If you can get the editor and emulator running off of the USB stick without needing anything to be installed on the computer or added to the registry, I'd think the rest would be a piece of cake. I'll have to try this out, as it would be very handy for traveling.

 

Michael

[jwierer]

There is always a minimal amount of configuration. For example bB requires environment variables to be set. You could put in autoexec.inf on a memory stick to do that every time it's inserted, but USB drives might be detected as a different drive letter so it would need to be an intelligent setup script. For an IDE, Visual bB does touch the registry, but if it detects no prior settings it will setup the defaults. Again an intelligent script could write to the registry settings to let it know the new directory for the compiler and emulator. I don't know if Stella uses the registry at all? That also assumes the authors allow redistribution of all those tools together.

 

-Jeff

[SeaGtGruff]

There is always a minimal amount of configuration. For example bB requires environment variables to be set. You could put in autoexec.inf on a memory stick to do that every time it's inserted, but USB drives might be detected as a different drive letter so it would need to be an intelligent setup script.

You can set the environment variables inside bB's batch file. I don't think you need to specify a drive letter; you should be able to just define the paths in relation to the current directory. When the batch is done and the command prompt window closes, the environment variables should go away by themselves.

 

For an IDE, Visual bB does touch the registry, but if it detects no prior settings it will setup the defaults. Again an intelligent script could write to the registry settings to let it know the new directory for the compiler and emulator.

I think part of the goal may be for everything to essentially disappear without leaving any traces it was ever there when the USB stick drive is removed. For example, if you insert the USB stick drive into your office workstation or laptop, you would want to be able to work on your bB projects without having to install anything, and without leaving any telltale files or settings behind when you remove the USB stick. So if you had to use a script to add registry settings, I think you'd want another script to remove the registry settings afterward-- although it would be even better if you didn't need to touch the registry at all.

 

Michael

[jwierer]

I think part of the goal may be for everything to essentially disappear without leaving any traces it was ever there when the USB stick drive is removed. For example, if you insert the USB stick drive into your office workstation or laptop, you would want to be able to work on your bB projects without having to install anything, and without leaving any telltale files or settings behind when you remove the USB stick. So if you had to use a script to add registry settings, I think you'd want another script to remove the registry settings afterward-- although it would be even better if you didn't need to touch the registry at all.

 

Michael

Moving VisualbB to load from an .ini file would be an option, but a considerable effort.

 

-Jeff

[+stephena]

There is always a minimal amount of configuration. For example bB requires environment variables to be set. You could put in autoexec.inf on a memory stick to do that every time it's inserted, but USB drives might be detected as a different drive letter so it would need to be an intelligent setup script. For an IDE, Visual bB does touch the registry, but if it detects no prior settings it will setup the defaults. Again an intelligent script could write to the registry settings to let it know the new directory for the compiler and emulator. I don't know if Stella uses the registry at all? That also assumes the authors allow redistribution of all those tools together.

 

-Jeff

Stella doesn't use the registry at all; all settings are saved in an INI file. For Windows, this file by default is stored in %My_Documents%\Stella\stella.ini. Obviously this won't work if you're running from a USB drive. So there's also the option to tell Stella where to look for its config files. You should create a file named 'basedir.txt' in the application folder, and place the path to search for all config files. If this path is set as '.', it will look in the current folder all the time (ie, whereever the app is installed), hence keeping all the config files with the app itself.

 

The reason this isn't the default is that it's bad behaviour, because you'd generally have to run with Administrator rights in Windows to store the config files with the app if the app is installed in the Program Files directory. And running as Admin in Windows is probably the number 1 reason for all the viruses and problems that WIndows has. I added the basedir functionality due to many requests, but I recommend not using it unless absolutely necessary (in the case of removable USB drives, its use is obviously warranted).

 

I haven't added basedir functionality any other system yet, and don't know if I will. OSX in particular would be difficult, as it doesn't use an INI file, only the standard OSX way of storing settings (in a plist file).

[Primordial Ooze]

I almost have a portable bB enviroment setup using DosBox. The only problem i am running into is, when i run 2600bas.bat i get the error "This program cannot be run in DOS mode", even though it is a dos program. I am using DosBox Portable 0.72 on Windows Vista. Any ideas?

 

Sincerely,

 

Cell Wall Rebound

[GroovyBee]

Whats wrong with using cmd.exe?

[+batari]

I almost have a portable bB enviroment setup using DosBox. The only problem i am running into is, when i run 2600bas.bat i get the error "This program cannot be run in DOS mode", even though it is a dos program. I am using DosBox Portable 0.72 on Windows Vista. Any ideas?

 

Sincerely,

 

Cell Wall Rebound

You need to run a DPMI program first. Download CWSDPMI and run the executable before running the compiler. It may be necessary to modify the batch file to run this program first.

[Primordial Ooze]

Whats wrong with using cmd.exe?

 

---------- Capture Output ----------

> "F:\atari\bB\2600bas.bat"

 

The command prompt has been disabled by your administrator.

 

Press any key to continue . . .

That's whats wrong with cmd.exe, i'm using it at my local library and the command prompt is blocked. Cheers.

 

Sincerely,

 

6502Pong