luckybuck Posted May 11, 2017 Share Posted May 11, 2017 Hi together,After years of investigations following every possible trace and paying government fees in a 3 digits amount, AtariWiki can disclose, that we finally found the author of TURBO-BASIC XL, Frank Ostrowski. Sadly, he has left us in 2011 at age 50 due to a severe disease. What a loss. He belonged to the so called: „irreplaceables“ and will be widely missed, not only by his family.As we know from Galaxy Quest, we never surrender and we never give up. Therefore, I found his brother, his sister, his colleagues and so on, but none of them has the listing nor the diskettes with the source code of his marvelous program. So, we have to accept, that his source code is lost in time, like tears in rain.But it gets even more worse. The enhanced version from Thorsten Karwoth is lost too, because of a water damage in Thorsten's home, which destroyed all listings and diskettes. That is a very sad status, but there is still hope. If someone out there in the galaxy can rebuild the source code out of this marvelous program from the original object code, like Lorenz did with Star Raiders: https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Star%20Raiders%20source%20code%20by%20Lorenz%20Wiest, we can rebuild it, we have the capability to build the world’s best Basic for Atari ever, faster, stronger, better. We call the six million dollar Basic just simple Ultimate Basic. With all the source codes now in PD: https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Articles#section-Articles-ProgrammingLanguages it should be possible. Any help or assistance in this is very welcome at any time.With this, I would like to say thank you all, who helped us, especially the donators for the fees, who would prefer to stay in the dark.Everything we could preserve from TURBO-BASIC XL can be found here: https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=TURBO-BASIC%20XL Frank, wherever you are, you really did a man's job, so outstanding and far ahead of your time. Germany is deep in your debt and so is the worldwide Atari community. We will never forgot your work and your contribution to the world. You belong to those, who are not replaceable and will never be forgotten. May god bless you, wherever you maybe are now.All the best. 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 12, 2017 Share Posted May 12, 2017 (edited) Who knows, something may turn up unexpectedly one day. I noticed the version of "Turbo BASIC XL - Expanded Documentation" on the wiki is not the most recent one I worked on. The last one I worked on removed unintentional spaces between bookmark entries. You can download the latest version here: Happy-Computer: Turbo-BASIC XL v1.5 (Disk) Edited May 12, 2017 by MrFish 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 12, 2017 Share Posted May 12, 2017 (edited) Some information about the CAR image on the wiki -- which has the full suite of TBXL language applications (Interpreter, Compiler, Linker, Runtime, etc.). Apparently, the CAR type is set to something other than SIC!, which is what it should be. The menu loads but nothing selected will run properly (just dumps back into the menu). I stripped the header off and created a new working CAR image. Here are both the ROM and CAR versions. [bTW, thanks, I hadn't seen this cartridge before.] TURBO-BASIC_XL_1.5,_Compiler_1.1,_Runtime_and_Linker.rom TURBO-BASIC_XL_1.5,_Compiler_1.1,_Runtime_and_Linker.zip Edited May 12, 2017 by MrFish 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 12, 2017 Share Posted May 12, 2017 That non-blinking portion of the Compiler selection was starting to get on my OCD. So I just deleted the version number for it altogether. Here's a new ROM and CAR as such. TURBO-BASIC_XL_1.5,_Compiler_1.1,_Runtime_and_Linker.rom TURBO-BASIC_XL_1.5,_Compiler_1.1,_Runtime_and_Linker.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgr_inz_rafal Posted May 12, 2017 Share Posted May 12, 2017 Sad story, indeed... But that's why I always publish source code for nearly all my apps & games. And I encourage others to not be shy and do it as well. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted May 12, 2017 Author Share Posted May 12, 2017 Yes, indeed, that is why I work on the Wiki. But so many others help here and elswere. As a community, we can make it. But just publishing isn't enough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan Ramanujan has published, but the people simply do not understand.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted May 12, 2017 Author Share Posted May 12, 2017 Thank you so much MrFish, will update the Wiki, if you don't mind with credits to you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 12, 2017 Share Posted May 12, 2017 (edited) Thank you so much MrFish, will update the Wiki, if you don't mind with credits to you? No problem, I was helping myself too. I don't mind; you can put MrFish there if you want. Has (have) the author(s) of the SIC cart image been credited somewhere, though? Edited May 12, 2017 by MrFish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted May 12, 2017 Author Share Posted May 12, 2017 No, time is always the problem, therefore I appreciate all for just some time more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted May 15, 2017 Share Posted May 15, 2017 I remember that around the year 2005/2006 Lonny Pursell, the author of e.g. AtarIRC for the ST platform, and a very experienced user of the GFA BASIC (he even was fixing bugs in the compiler) found a contact to Frank Ostrowski (who is also the author of the GFA). I remember that we asked him about the sources for the TBXL. He replied that these did not exist anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted May 15, 2017 Share Posted May 15, 2017 oh... sad to hear.... Turbo Basic XL is definitly one of my long term used language since release in Happy Computer as type in listing. as I never coded on ST but I fully apprecate the impact of GFA basic... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted May 15, 2017 Share Posted May 15, 2017 oh... sad to hear.... Turbo Basic XL is definitly one of my long term used language since release in Happy Computer as type in listing. as I never coded on ST but I fully apprecate the impact of GFA basic... If we have the type in listing, wouldn't that be everything (source) minus the comments? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariGeezer Posted May 15, 2017 Share Posted May 15, 2017 If we have the type in listing, wouldn't that be everything (source) minus the comments? They are here:http://www.tmeyer.de/atari/turbobasicxl.html But in hex data... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted May 15, 2017 Share Posted May 15, 2017 They are here:http://www.tmeyer.de/atari/turbobasicxl.html But in hex data... I see. So we're no father ahead than doing a manual disassembly then commenting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 15, 2017 Share Posted May 15, 2017 I believe TBXL has already been "reverse engineered from scratch". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 15, 2017 Share Posted May 15, 2017 (edited) I remember that around the year 2005/2006 Lonny Pursell, the author of e.g. AtarIRC for the ST platform, and a very experienced user of the GFA BASIC (he even was fixing bugs in the compiler) found a contact to Frank Ostrowski (who is also the author of the GFA). I remember that we asked him about the sources for the TBXL. He replied that these did not exist anymore. So it seems this search was destined for failure before it began. Pretty bleak circumstances; not really much hope of any original source code turning up for this at all. Edited May 15, 2017 by MrFish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted May 15, 2017 Author Share Posted May 15, 2017 @drac030: Thanks, would be cool, to have known this a little bit earlier... @Stephen & AtariGeezer: Thomas Meyer's site was first, but we have the listing in the AtariWiki, too. Yes, we just have the object code, but not the source code from which the object code can be created. There is just hope, that a new disassembler (from JAC!?) or someone else can do a 1st marvelous job in this case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted May 15, 2017 Share Posted May 15, 2017 Well, atarionline has this available: http://www.atarionline.pl/utils/Z.%20Inne%20platformy/PC/Atari%20Ampel%20Decoder%200.09.7z?PHPSESSID=d1bf6855f71b1dd3549a62fc9b22d608 In the examples you can find the Ampel hex-codes for TB XL, Compiler and Runtime. (Thats still no source, but maybe usefull in some way...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted May 15, 2017 Author Share Posted May 15, 2017 @fkashjazzcat: do you know for sure or do you just believe? If you know, from whom? @MrFish: Of course, a waste of time, money and disappointing good users here, because I can't upload new stuff in the Wiki in that time. But the source code page do really look great meanwhile and I want to continue this. Frank's work was it worth and I would do it anytime again. The hope does at the very end... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted May 15, 2017 Author Share Posted May 15, 2017 @CharlieChaplin: WOW! Didn't knew that! We have type in listing task force at Abbuc, so again, we have a waste of time here... Good to have brought up this topic, many users here have borught one piece after another. This will help us to complete the picture. Thank you all. :-))) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted May 16, 2017 Share Posted May 16, 2017 So sad to hear about his dead. RIP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 16, 2017 Share Posted May 16, 2017 (edited) So sad to hear about his dead. RIP. Yes, it is. The man has a lot of respect and appreciation from me for his (free) contributions to the system (and ST, GFA BASIC). I gave a second dedication on my site to him and Happy Computer Magazine -- after Bill Wilkinson and OSS. I plan to add more TBXL material to my site eventually too. Edited May 16, 2017 by MrFish 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mnemo Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 On 5/15/2017 at 8:42 PM, AtariGeezer said: They are here:http://www.tmeyer.de/atari/turbobasicxl.html But in hex data... That's my page, by the way. You're welcome, everyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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