Diamond in the Rough - dcalc - Front End Done

RSS Bot · April 18, 2014

The front end or graphic interface is done to my satisfaction. I have a feeling that writing the code for the icon events will be a breeze. A list of programming utilities that need to written is growing daily.

As the icons were designed, I must have watched each of them placed on the screen about a thousand times. A very slow process. Once they were on the screen where they belong, turning off the Antic chip helped speed up the process. There was a 30% increase but it still takes about 17 seconds to build the screen. There are several other ways to increase the speed but they will have to wait for the optimization phase of the project.

The SYSDRAW function is being used to print the top title, the register A (REGA$) , and register X (REGX$). The PARAPRINT function is much slower but has more options. The thing to remember about SYSDRAW is that the string must end with a CHR$(255). You'll know when it doesn’t.

BASIC's PLOT and DRAWTO commands were used to draw the borders around the registers and keypad. In hi-res mode the Diamond functions seem to plot a two bit wide pixel with the bit pattern of the color register number. Something to look into.

Now its time to write the routine that checks the EVENTTYPE to determine which icon is clicked on and the routine for each icon

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0-9, +/- , decimal point, and BS (back space) are for input into the REGX.

Up arrow (or enter) moves the REGX to REGA.

+-*,/ do the operations between REGA and REGX. Puts answer in REGA, Clears REGX

C clears REGX and REGA.

Apposing arrows will swap the contents of REGX and REGA.

The Q in the lower right hand corner will end the program to the READY prompt until it is programmed to exit to the Diamond Desktop.

I am still working on my null modem cable problems so the code examples will have to wait. If I hear that anyone is interested in seeing the code as it is being written then I'll put a little more effort into getting the computers connected.

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