86 replies to this topic

[Bones-69]

I have been using RXB in preference over XB now for some time. I thought XB programmers not familiar with RXB might be interested in some of the added functions that I have found very useful. I reckon this is the XB that TI should have made....

CALL DIR - List drive contents from command prompt

CALL HPUT - Similar to DISPLAY AT but you can place text from column one (As opposed to DISPLAY AT where you loose columns 1,2,31 & 32)

CALL HGET & VGET - Similar to CALL GCHAR only you can grab up to 255 screen characters into a single string.

CALL LDIAG & RDIAG - Similar to HCHAR & VCHAR but will place repeated characters diagonally.

CALL CLSALL - Will close all open files

CALL GMOTION - Returns velocity of moving sprites

CALL RMOTION - Reverses velocity of sprites

* Auto repeat feature for HCHAR, CHAR, VCHAR, COLOR, GCHAR, COINC, DISTANCE & others.

* Cool ALL functions added to COLOR, MOTION, CHAR, RMOTION & others.

* Able to use character sets 15 & 16 (but has some limitations when using sprites at the same time)

* Able to redefine and color specify characters 30 & 31 (COLOR set 0)

I haven't attempted to include all the extra stuff (have probably only mentioned 20% of it), but hopefully this gives a little snap shot of what I have found very useful. Also, I have never used RXB on a genuine machine, only under Win994a so can't comment on real machine performance.....

And to top it all off, all existing XB programs will still run using RXB. Anyway... I think it bloody rocks! I have attached the RXB document for anyone who hasn't seen it

Attached Files

•  Rich Extended Basic Manual.pdf   259.6K   52 downloads

[Opry99er]

Thanks buddy!!!  This is good stuff, and something we should ask Filip to pin to the resources thread.  Love RXB but never use it... Not many people have it on the real TI, and I write my games for everyone to hopefully play on their real TI.  . However, if enough people get interested, perhaps we could have a group run of RXB carts made up.  .  If we all have em, it makes programming in it more preferable, in my honest opinion.  Good document you've posted here, thank you!

[Bones-69]

Opry99er, on Tue May 25, 2010 9:25 PM, said:

However, if enough people get interested, perhaps we could have a group run of RXB carts made up.

Sorry for my newbie attitude - but it really is that easy is it??

[Opry99er]

Assuming there is no current cartridge form, it is certainly possible.  Assuming it is not already in cart form (which I think it is), a banking scheme would have to be written for it.  I'm not aware of the full size but I highly doubt its larger than 128k, the current available board (when hacked slightly).  If we had the RXB in cartridge format, it could be loaded onto an EPROM and put it into a Jon Guidry cart board.  I have a 512k 4 bank multicart.  64k per bank, 2 dip switches on the front.  It holds about 60 or so 8k games/programs.  Anything's possible.  And with the new technology and renewed interest in the system and programming, it is CERTAINLY possible.  If the thing is already on cart, all we have to do is dump it onto an EPROM and we can make as many carts as we have cart boards.  The last cart board run was 250.  =)

[sometimes99er]

Thanks for sharing. Never knew what it was about. Some nice new commands there.  

[The Codex]

I like the look of those extra commands. This is a new one on me too, and it does sound like a step up from XB. Rarity of carts would be an issue, though if Tursi wants to include a memory image of it in Classic99 I expect that would speed adoption amongst developers.

[Gary from OPA]

Opry99er, on Tue May 25, 2010 10:12 PM, said:

Assuming there is no current cartridge form, it is certainly possible.  Assuming it is not already in cart form (which I think it is), a banking scheme would have to be written for it.  I'm not aware of the full size but I highly doubt its larger than 128k, the current available board (when hacked slightly).  If we had the RXB in cartridge format, it could be loaded onto an EPROM and put it into a Jon Guidry cart board.  I have a 512k 4 bank multicart.  64k per bank, 2 dip switches on the front.  It holds about 60 or so 8k games/programs.  Anything's possible.  And with the new technology and renewed interest in the system and programming, it is CERTAINLY possible.  If the thing is already on cart, all we have to do is dump it onto an EPROM and we can make as many carts as we have cart boards.  The last cart board run was 250.  =)

The RXB module is full module of both ROM and GROM, since most of the added code is in the GROM side which the original XB was designed also in. -- Rich's design is one of the best new versions of XB, besides XB3. -- At one time OPA had the contract to produce the RXB when it was in development, and that was one of the original reasons for our POP-CART design which could handle up to 512k of ROM and 1megabyte of GROM plus a 512k "emulated disk".

[Opry99er]

Pop cart?  Hmmmmm......

[Gary from OPA]

Opry99er, on Wed May 26, 2010 8:00 AM, said:

Pop cart?  Hmmmmm......

POP stands for "Pile Of Programs"

[sometimes99er]

Where can we get more information about this POP-CART ?  

[adamantyr]

Gary from OPA, on Wed May 26, 2010 7:54 AM, said:

The RXB module is full module of both ROM and GROM, since most of the added code is in the GROM side which the original XB was designed also in. -- Rich's design is one of the best new versions of XB, besides XB3. -- At one time OPA had the contract to produce the RXB when it was in development, and that was one of the original reasons for our POP-CART design which could handle up to 512k of ROM and 1megabyte of GROM plus a 512k "emulated disk".

Out of curiosity, Gary, do you remember how many Extended Basic 3 cartridges were made? I got one through TM Direct/Triton because I pre-ordered, but I learned much later that they were incredibly rare... only one other 99'er I know of has one, and some have said there were less than a dozen or so.

Adamantyr

[unhuman]

Me wants... If it's a cartridge. Still haven't used my CF7+, but if it can manage that, this would be the perfectest XB ever.

[Opry99er]

Adam,
   Consider yourself one lucky dude to have one of those.  

hey, who is this Rich fella who is responsible for RXB?  Not Polivka, I imagine?

[unhuman]

Google says: RXB was developed by Richard Gilbertson
http://drbray.blogsp...01_archive.html

Opry99er, on Wed May 26, 2010 3:17 PM, said:

hey, who is this Rich fella who is responsible for RXB? Not Polivka, I imagine?

[sometimes99er]

Don't know if this is interesting. Googled: RXB "Richard Gilbertson"

Mainbyte's guestbook:

Name: Rich Gilbertson
Location: Vancouver Washington
Date: 11/17/2009
Comments: Been looking for how to get out the new RXB updates onto the web.

Hall of fame guestbook:

Richard Gilbertson
Friday, December 11, 2009
Just looking for a GRAM device. Wanted to update RXB to work on the PC Simulators for the TI.

Copy of post
RXB for download at 99.net

[retroclouds]

Thanks for pointing that out sometimes99er!

I checked out the mentioned RXB download at 99.net, the only backdraw is that the cartridge is in a proprietary format
only to be used in Win994A. So no chance to use this in classic99 or MESS  

Dunno, perhaps it's floating around somewhere in MESS bin format. Guess we'll have to do some digging on whtech.

[sometimes99er]

ftp://ftp.whtech.com/sitelist.txt reveals:

ftp://ftp.whtech.com/emulators/cartridge_images/rpk/cartridges/
rxb.rpk
rxb_1002_super_ea.rpk
rxb_2002_super_ea.rpk
rxb_237.rpk
rxb_24.rpk
rxb_26.rpk
rxb_v2000.rpk
rxb_v2001_super_ea.rpk
rxb_v555.rpk

./emulators/pc99/rxb/
./emulators/pc99/modules/RXB v1005/
./emulators/pc99/A super system/rxb20006.grm
./emulators/pc99/archives/rxb.exe
./emulators/pc99/RXB2001/
./emulators/v9t9/Rich Extended Basic (RXB)/

./emulators/mess/old/Complete MESS Geneve emulation/mess/software/ti99_4a/
RXB v1005 (19xx)(Rich Gilbertson)(Part 1 of 3).zip
RXB v1005 (19xx)(Rich Gilbertson)(Part 2 of 3).zip
RXB v1005 (19xx)(Rich Gilbertson)(Part 3 of 3).zip
RXB v2000 (19xx)(Rich Gilbertson)(Part 1 of 3).zip
RXB v2000 (19xx)(Rich Gilbertson)(Part 2 of 3).zip
RXB v2000 (19xx)(Rich Gilbertson)(Part 3 of 3).zip
RXB v2001 & Super Editor Assembler (19xx)(Rich Gilbertson)(Part 1 of 3).zip
RXB v2001 & Super Editor Assembler (19xx)(Rich Gilbertson)(Part 2 of 3).zip
RXB v2001 & Super Editor Assembler (19xx)(Rich Gilbertson)(Part 3 of 3).zip
RXB v5.55 (1992)(Cadd Electronics - Rich Gilbertson)(Part 1 of 3).zip
RXB v5.55 (1992)(Cadd Electronics - Rich Gilbertson)(Part 2 of 3).zip
RXB v5.55 (1992)(Cadd Electronics - Rich Gilbertson)(Part 3 of 3).zip

[retroclouds]

Thanks for looking this up sometimes99er  
So it seems that the v5.55 version is the newest one.
Will give it a try.

[Opry99er]

Rich, I'm bumping this thread so you can take a glance at it. =)  Alot of these questions have already been answered.  Maybe you could add to the comments and questions here.  =)

[RXB]

Opry99er, on Sun Mar 13, 2011 9:00 PM, said:

Rich, I'm bumping this thread so you can take a glance at it. =)  Alot of these questions have already been answered.  Maybe you could add to the comments and questions here.  =)

Sure glad to now that I am back on a regular basis.

I think looking at code that should write this new routine:

CALL KEYGOTO(string,keyunit,key,status,linenumber,…)
string is the keys you want to scan for like "Yy"
keyunit is like normal XB 0 to 5
key is the key pressed in a variable
status is just the key is pressed or not
linenumber is the line number to GOTO if the key is pressed

You could write a program that does this:

100 PRINT "Yes or No or choose a option 1 to 4"
110 CALL KEYGOTO("Yy",0,K,S,860,"Nn",0,K,S,950,"1234",0,K,S,1100)

For Yy goto line 860 for Nn goto line 950 for 1234 goto 1100

You can see the amont of code it would take to do this in IF THEN ELSE and a CALL KEY in normal XB.
Within RXB itself it would actually do a SCAN of the Keyboard 3 times, but as it is GPL and now the XB program it is very fast.

[Opry99er]

Very cool, man...  I can see the benefits there.... Not only does it keep the code smaller, but there is a legitimate "time" of execution decrease as well--- that takes about 5 statements and drops it down to "1".  

Glad you're posting here, man.

[unhuman]

Yeah, my only concern about RXB is portability. Now I'm fantasizing here, but it'd be awesome to have all those new routines in a LINKable binary so typical XB could use them.

[Opry99er]

[RXB]

Opry99er, on Mon Mar 14, 2011 7:06 AM, said:

Thanks I found bugs in 2001 and will fix them in RXB 2011 also not many people know it but ASC() in XB has a bug that crreats a memory full error or bad value error, it is a bear trying to figure out what the cause is. It looks like it is a check in FAC7 (>834A +7) have to go through tons of code to see if this is the source. If anyone has errors they know for sure in XB let me know and I can make a fixed version of XB, but will have to get the original source code again as my other hard drive had that and I do not have the original XB source code I realeased any more.
I do not have Access to the White FTP it asks for a password and does not accept my old one. A copy of XB GPL and ROMs source code was downloaded by me to that site. And I think someone else said they have it.
That way you guys could have a fixed version of XB also._

[Opry99er]

Well, I can download and send you anything you need... I'm on WHT all the time.  But if you're talking about UPloading, I don't have access to that.  Thanks for the work, man... We appreciate ya!