TI Pilot programming language

[+hloberg]

Anyone here ever did any programming in TI99 Pilot. I just scoured WHTECH and came up with a complete package for Pilot (attached below).

Pilot looks like a fairly nice language for the TI99. It's supposed to be a learning language but from what I played with it so fair it's more like Assembler lite; two word command then parameters.

Example:

R: This PILOT 99 code will print out the squares of the 10 numbers 1 through 10.

C:#N<-1
LP:
C:#S<-#N^2
C:#N<-#N+1
T: #S
EL:

 

and

 

IT:

R: A simple use of a subroutine.SUBROUTINE TO DO SOME MATH WORK AND PRINT IT!
C:#N<-5
T:
T:
T:
U: *SUB
E:
*SUB
C:#A<-SQR(#N)
C:#B<-#N^2
T: N IS #N
T: SQR(N) IS #A
T: N^2 IS #B
E:
.
UP:

R: Unplot Point ^^ GRAPHICS MODE ONLY

 

the language supports 32 sprites, 256 characters, 40 column text, bit map graphics (with commands like circle & rectangle) and it's fairly fast as it's compiled. There is an interesting command IG: this splits the screen in top 2/3 in bit-map and bottom 1/3 32=column mode. It also only supports floating point numbers, SIN, COS, TAN, etc... so that slows it a little. Disk reads & writes, While, subroutines, labels are also supported. some of the limits is only 32 numeric variable #A-#Z but only 13 string variables $A-$M and it doesn't seem to support arrays or DATA statements. 

One day i'll do a full write up on my blog and add it to my website. might even write a game or two if it turns out to be stable enough (so far so good though)

enjoy.

 

Pilot.zip

[pixelpedant]

I have used TI's own TI PILOT to a degree.  You can see some limited use of it in a video I did a while ago on the p-code card and p-system. 

 

Note that Pilot99 (provided in the above-attached file) is not the same thing as TI PILOT.  It is an independently and separately produced freeware implementation of the Pilot language for TI-99/4A. 

 

TI's own TI PILOT is a p-code program (implementing the Pilot language) whose capabilities are consequently largely defined by those of TI's provided p-system libraries (but further limited by its extremely simple syntax). 

 

So that being the case, I find TI PILOT per se pretty uninteresting.  Since it's just a less feature-rich, less flexible, less performant way to access capabilities the p-system provides you via Pascal. 

 

It's intended to be a very stripped-down educational language.  And I don't see much shine in it outside that very specific application, personally. 

 

Here is the disk for TI PILOT itself (requiring the p-code card and p-system environment):

 

TI Pilot [PHD 5066].dsk

Edited November 1, 2023 by pixelpedant

[+Ksarul]

The version @hloberg found was written by Thomas Weithoffer, IIRC. I think I saw somewhere that he passed away at age 22 from cystic fibrosis. Much too young for such a talented programmer to go. . .

[+hloberg]

10 hours ago, Ksarul said:

The version @hloberg found was written by Thomas Weithoffer, IIRC. I think I saw somewhere that he passed away at age 22 from cystic fibrosis. Much too young for such a talented programmer to go. . .

It's noted in the documentation of his passing of CF and to give to the cystic fibrosis in his honer.