[News] BBC BASIC Beta Testing - 2009/03/06 r720

[benryves]

So it is, cheers.

There's a new version up:

• It may fix the USB issues.
• I've changed the pixel plotting code again so hopefully SIERPINS works properly now - please let me know!
• I've included two extra samples, one a tilemapping demo and one an array upper bound routine.
• I believe I've fixed the slowdown issues displayed in the minesweeper game.
• The file editor accepts a file as a command-line argument.

[Kiruahxh]

The *SPEED command doesn't seem to do anything.
I've tested it, with Fast, Slow, 6 and 15, and in eah case, it takes 23 seconds to run SIERPINS (with k from 1 to 500).

Which editor is that? The full-screen file editor on the calculator? If so, no, sorry. I could update it, but it would not be able to edit BBC BASIC files as they are tokenised (and it could only handle ASCII files).

So the full-screen editor doesn't exist any more... I think it's important to improve the abilities of the command line editor, at least to have a command to see the source of the program with a scroll...

I've looked at your website, and the cube seems to run very fast (2Mhz is ~ the speed on my calc)
Is that normal??
____________________
(r777 18/01 - TI 84+)

[benryves]

The *SPEED command doesn't seem to do anything.
I've tested it, with Fast, Slow, 6 and 15, and in eah case, it takes 23 seconds to run SIERPINS (with k from 1 to 500).

Does SIERPINS at least display correctly? There were some speed bugs in r577 that have been fixed since (r585). Is there still a speed issue? Does *SPEED work with CUBE? (I get 3FPS in 6MHz mode, 6FPS in 15MHz mode in Wabbitemu).

So the full-screen editor doesn't exist any more... I think it's important to improve the abilities of the command line editor, at least to have a command to see the source of the program with a scroll...

I agree this could be improved upon. There are a number of ways of making LISTs a bit more manageable, though. LIST itself can take line numbers as arguments to list particular lines in the program, and you can use the copy-key editing to copy the lines and edit them. LIST IF can be used to search for code. VDU 14 pauses after each page of text is output, which may make scrolling more practical. Holding 2nd+Alpha normally will temporarily pause listings.

The tokeniser is documented here. I don't know if BBC BASIC exposes a way to tokenise a line of ASCII text to a line of BASIC code (if so, it's not documented).

I've looked at your website, and the cube seems to run very fast (2Mhz is ~ the speed on my calc)
Is that normal??

It's normal insofar as that's not a calculator, that's this computer project and the CUBE demo on that is written in straight Z80 assembly, not BBC BASIC.

[Kiruahxh]

The speed command works great for CUBE. (I've got 2FPS at 6Mhz, and 6 at 15Mhz)

The problem is that as soon as I've put the speed to 6Mhz, I can't put it back to 15MhZ without leaving BBC!!
_____________________
(r777 18/01 - TI 84+)

[benryves]

The problem is that as soon as I've put the speed to 6Mhz, I can't put it back to 15MhZ without leaving BBC!!
_____________________
(r777 18/01 - TI 84+)

If your signature is correct and you're using r577 then that was an identified bug unrelated to the *SPEED command (it would call Speed.SlowDown more than Speed.SpeedUp, resulting in the calculator getting permanently stuck at the "slow" speed). Are you using r577 or the latest r585?

[Kiruahxh]

I was using r577, but the *SPEED bug has been fixed.

I've tested the problem with the USB link, by default the problem still happens in the new version, and the two commands don't have effects on it...
___________________
( r585 - TI 84+)

[benryves]

Botheration. It's really difficult for me to know what to suggest, not owning a TI-84+. Thanks for testing, anyhow.

[Kiruahxh]

You should maybe ask to Tr1P1ea (tr1p1ea- at -yahoo- point -com- point -au), cause he's App Xlib doesn't crash when I remove the USB link at it's Menu . I can't say the image move a lot ... but it's OK.

That's pretty funny, I've seen this screen in another place^^ I let you search XD : http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fi ... 35907.html

[bwang]

Sierpins still doesn't work unless I set it to run at 6 mhz. In general, it seems that the several drawing commands don't work unless I set *REFRESH OFF, then execute *REFRESH after the drawing is finished. I'm using r585 on a 84+.

[benryves]

You should maybe ask to Tr1P1ea (tr1p1ea- at -yahoo- point -com- point -au), cause he's App Xlib doesn't crash when I remove the USB link at it's Menu .

I suspect xLIB's menu isn't affected by the TI-OS event handlers, whereas BBC BASIC uses all shadow registers, IY and IM 2 - changing these can crash BBC BASIC.

That's pretty funny, I've seen this screen in another place^^ I let you search XD : http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fi ... 35907.html

Take a look at the source code for the TILEMAP demo.

Sierpins still doesn't work unless I set it to run at 6 mhz. In general, it seems that the several drawing commands don't work unless I set *REFRESH OFF, then execute *REFRESH after the drawing is finished. I'm using r585 on a 84+.

I don't suppose anyone knows if the TI-84+ LCD hardware is any different to on the TI-83+? Thanks for the bug report.

[calc84maniac]

Some LCDs simply require a longer time between outputs to the LCD ports. This is simple to fix for any LCD if you make a simple loop which polls the 7th bit of port $10 (this bit is reset when the LCD is ready for another instruction).

[benryves]

Yes, I poll that bit, I never use hard-coded delays.

Code: Select all

Busy:
    in a,($10)
    or a
    jp m,Busy
    ret

[bwang]

Is there another way to convert .bbc files to .8xp files besides using the editor? I'm using Linux, and the editor doesn't seem to work under Wine.

[benryves]

Is there another way to convert .bbc files to .8xp files besides using the editor? I'm using Linux, and the editor doesn't seem to work under Wine.

It's a .NET app, not a Windows app. That said it does have a dependency on the (unmanaged) Scintilla text editor control, so I can see it having difficulties under Linux.

Attached to this post is a pure .NET converter app that should run under Mono. It's a command-line affair, but should work for the moment. You can use it like this:

Code: Select all

BBCBasicConverter -load program.txt -save program.8xp

where program.txt is a plain text BBC BASIC program (created in the editor of your choice). You can even renumber your program in between loading and saving, like this:

Code: Select all

BBCBasicConverter -load program.txt -renumber -save program.8xp

That way you can have an input text file that just contains unnumbered lines and the resulting TI-83+ program variable with have line numbers 10, 20, 30 etc inserted for you.

Let me know how it works out for you!

[bwang]

The converter works nicely under Mono on Linux.