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Anyone have an APX Extended Fig-Forth manual?


tschak909

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Didn't this version of forth boot into a tutorial node?

 

I must admit I have never heard of any documentation for it.

 

Also is there any reason that you want to use Antic forth? if there is not you may want to have a look at the following link:

 

http://atariwiki.strotmann.de/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Forth

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[quote name=Sub(Function( :))' timestamp='1329494196' post='2468243]

Didn't this version of forth boot into a tutorial node?

 

I must admit I have never heard of any documentation for it.

 

Also is there any reason that you want to use Antic forth? if there is not you may want to have a look at the following link:

 

http://atariwiki.str....jsp?page=Forth

 

It's not the Antic forth, it's the APX fig-forth.

 

The big reason is that it precisely IS a self contained environment, that allows me full access to the disk, and when I SAVE the environment, it saves a fully boot strapped environment.

 

I figure if I can fix the weirdness in some of the screens, that this FORTH will provide precisely what I need (it's a minimal fig-forth, with an editor, a debugger, an assembler), so I can experiement with making bootable game disks.

 

-Thom

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I have been doing that, and using the screens as a starting point to fix the damaged screens. (Basically, I am going through each screen, cross referencing from both the disk and the aforementioned page), and am spitting out a repaired disk.

 

One of the parts with slightly damaged code was the editor (it's the FIG FORTH editor mentioned in the FIG FORTH INSTALLATION manual), so I used the disk, carsten's screens, and that listing to get me a functional editor that I could use to write the screens. (it's worth noting that the screens in Carsten's wiki have the same damage.)

 

-Thom

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I have been doing that, and using the screens as a starting point to fix the damaged screens. (Basically, I am going through each screen, cross referencing from both the disk and the aforementioned page), and am spitting out a repaired disk.

 

One of the parts with slightly damaged code was the editor (it's the FIG FORTH editor mentioned in the FIG FORTH INSTALLATION manual), so I used the disk, carsten's screens, and that listing to get me a functional editor that I could use to write the screens. (it's worth noting that the screens in Carsten's wiki have the same damage.)

 

-Thom

I couple months ago I acquired a lot which included the disk for this software, but I have yet to locate the manual. I did find a youtube video about patching the editor, oddly enough my copy of this disk also appears to have the same problem.

 

Perhaps APX had a batch of fig-forth floppies made from a corrupted master? I did find what appears to be a working copy on the pigwa ftp site.

Fig Forth 1.1.atr

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I have been doing that, and using the screens as a starting point to fix the damaged screens. (Basically, I am going through each screen, cross referencing from both the disk and the aforementioned page), and am spitting out a repaired disk.

 

One of the parts with slightly damaged code was the editor (it's the FIG FORTH editor mentioned in the FIG FORTH INSTALLATION manual), so I used the disk, carsten's screens, and that listing to get me a functional editor that I could use to write the screens. (it's worth noting that the screens in Carsten's wiki have the same damage.)

 

-Thom

I couple months ago I acquired a lot which included the disk for this software, but I have yet to locate the manual. I did find a youtube video about patching the editor, oddly enough my copy of this disk also appears to have the same problem.

 

Perhaps APX had a batch of fig-forth floppies made from a corrupted master? I did find what appears to be a working copy on the pigwa ftp site.

Fig Forth 1.1.atr

 

I'm almost done reconstructing the screens, I went through each, and cross referenced them with Carsten's dumps, alongside a copy of Bill Ragsdale's fig forth installation manual, which has been invaluable.

 

Once this is done, can someone host this? Perhaps AtariMania? This is a good FORTH, and i'll make some much needed changes to the screens to update things and I have enough documentation here to WRITE a new manual.

 

-Thom

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Just for information:

 

Regarding the APX fig forth ATR and DCM downloads. They can also be found here

 

http://www.atariarchives.org/APX/showinfo.php?cat=20029

 

There are two releases however both have the same "on-screen" version number.

 

I do not have time to go through the screens to find out the differences :(

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  • 10 months later...

Once this is done, can someone host this? Perhaps AtariMania? This is a good FORTH, and i'll make some much needed changes to the screens to update things and I have enough documentation here to WRITE a new manual.

 

-Thom

 

Hi Thom,

 

you are always welcome to host your code on atariwiki.org.

 

You need to create a login and send me a short E-Mail (atariwiki@strotmann.de) so I can give you edit rights.

 

-- Carsten

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  • 5 years later...

In case anyone else is searching for a working APX Forth, I discovered the ATR's from atariarchives.com (https://www.atariarchives.org/APX/showinfo.php?cat=20029) are corrupt, but the DCM files are fine (looks like a bad DCM2ATR version is out there somewhere). The archive on atarimania.com (http://www.atarimania.com/utility-atari-400-800-xl-xe-extended-fig-forth_29927.html) unfortunately currently contains the corrupt versions. I've attached regenerated ATR versions to this post.

 

The early version disk (11/10/81) interestingly isn't the earliest version, as the screens are more similar to the 2.0 version (01/15/82) than the screens in the PDF documentation on atarimania.com (http://www.atarimania.com/documents/Exteneded_Fig_Forth_rev_1.pdf), modulo the addition of some Starting Forth screens. I'd would love to see a disk of that surface, mostly to check if the FORTH kernel portion at the beginning of the disk ever changed throughout the lifetime of the product.

 

APX20029.zip

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What exactly is the problem with the disks on Atarimania?

 

Some of the sectors are padded at the end with the last non-space character, instead of a spaces, which I posit is due to a bad DCM2ATR conversion. This leads to a number of corrupt, unloadable screens.

 

For example, sector 176 looks like this. Similar errors occur in sectors 145, 176, 238, 241, 249, 266, 267, 425, 448, 606 and 641.

 

005790: SECTOR: 176: FILE:

0 2d 2d 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e-3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e -->>>>>>>>>>>>>>

10 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e-3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

20 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e-3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

30 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e-3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

40 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e-3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

50 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e-3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

60 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e-3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

70 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e-3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

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Some of the sectors are padded at the end with the last non-space character, instead of a spaces, which I posit is due to a bad DCM2ATR conversion. This leads to a number of corrupt, unloadable screens.

 

For example, sector 176 looks like this. Similar errors occur in sectors 145, 176, 238, 241, 249, 266, 267, 425, 448, 606 and 641.

 

005790: SECTOR: 176: FILE:

0 2d 2d 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e-3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e -->>>>>>>>>>>>>>

10 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e-3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

20 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e-3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

30 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e-3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

40 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e-3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

50 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e-3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

60 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e-3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

70 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e-3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e 3e >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Interesting. So, now, it makes me wonder if there are other disks that have received botched conversions

from DCM2ATR -- if that is in fact what happened here -- and the same conversion tool is being used.

 

 

The early version disk (11/10/81) interestingly isn't the earliest version, as the screens are more similar to the 2.0 version (01/15/82) than the screens in the PDF documentation on atarimania.com (http://www.atarimania.com/documents/Exteneded_Fig_Forth_rev_1.pdf), modulo the addition of some Starting Forth screens. I'd would love to see a disk of that surface, mostly to check if the FORTH kernel portion at the beginning of the disk ever changed throughout the lifetime of the product.

 

That would be interesting to find out -- if an older version surfaces.

 

So, you're saying there are no differences in the kernel between the two version you corrected here?

That being the case, it makes sense that they both come up as v1.1 on boot -- seeing the differences

are only in the screens/functions rather than in the kernel.

Edited by MrFish
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Interesting. So, now, it makes me wonder if there are other disks that have received botched conversions

from DCM2ATR -- if that is in fact what happened here -- and the same conversion tool is being used.

 

 

That would be interesting to find out -- if an older version surfaces.

 

So, you're saying there are no differences in the kernel between the two version you corrected here?

That being the case, it makes sense that they both come up as v1.1 on boot -- seeing the differences

are only in the screens/functions rather than in the kernel.

 

I was similarly concerned, so I looked at all the APX images on atariarchives for which both DCMs and ATRs existed (about 100), and found 5 where the ATR was different than the DCM image. Only the APX Forth images had significant differences, the other 3 had differences only in a single sector, and 2 of those were in the directory sectors (so easy to spot/fix if needed).

 

The v1.1 and v2.0 FORTH disks are essentially identical except for the addition of some screens to support Starting Forth, and a handful of minor edits in other screens.

 

Trivia: The APX FORTH assembler forgot to include TAY ;-).

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I was similarly concerned, so I looked at all the APX images on atariarchives for which both DCMs and ATRs existed (about 100), and found 5 where the ATR was different than the DCM image. Only the APX Forth images had significant differences, the other 3 had differences only in a single sector, and 2 of those were in the directory sectors (so easy to spot/fix if needed).

 

Good it's not significant.

 

 

The v1.1 and v2.0 FORTH disks are essentially identical except for the addition of some screens to support Starting Forth, and a handful of minor edits in other screens.

 

I had read that about the Starting Forth Lessons, but didn't know it constituted the difference between the two versions. Good information.

 

 

Trivia: The APX FORTH assembler forgot to include TAY ;-).

 

That was done on purpose in order to encourage more use of the Forth language itself. :P

 

Thanks for all the fixes and the information. I have one of these disks on my site, so I'll definitely be updating it with your fixed image.

 

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