+Vorticon Posted November 13, 2016 Share Posted November 13, 2016 Is there a flavor of XB out there that supports 40col text mode? Back in 1981, I wanted to type in the Sea Battle program from David Ahl's second book of computer games, but quickly realized that I needed 40 columns for that. Besides it's unlikely it would have in memory anyway. At the time all I had was the console and a tape recorder, not even XB, and I was really bummed out that I could not type it in because it looked really cool! I'm in the process of laboriously typing it into my PDP8 replica now, and man is it a pain, not to mention that the PDP Basic is fairly limited with no facilities for such things as ON GOTO, THEN, or RESTORE xxx..., making the conversion a little harder. Once it's done though, I could easily take the listing and paste it into Classic 99 and it will work with minimal changes ( The PDP uses \ as a multi-line separator which is kind of odd). I suppose I could try and modify the program to fit in 32 columns at some point if all else fails... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted November 13, 2016 Share Posted November 13, 2016 IIRC, the only one that directly supported it was Myarc XB II. . . 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted November 13, 2016 Share Posted November 13, 2016 For this, I also have Barry Travers "XXB 1.5" in the list. Is this something similar ? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted November 13, 2016 Author Share Posted November 13, 2016 Any of these available as .bin files by any chance? Perhaps I could burn my own cart... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted November 13, 2016 Share Posted November 13, 2016 I´ve found this: (but I am not sure about this 40col-thing at all) XXB-Ext-Ext-Basic-Barry-Traver.DSK XXB-Display-Utils-TRAVER.dsk XXB-Ext-Ext-Basic-Barry-Traver.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted November 13, 2016 Author Share Posted November 13, 2016 Thanks! From the docs it looks like 40-col mode is definitely supported. I'm going to play with it and see how it performs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted November 13, 2016 Share Posted November 13, 2016 cool. yep, I am doing some PDFs from inside TI-Disks, just to have a quicker access to this. But I didn´t read it yet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted November 13, 2016 Author Share Posted November 13, 2016 So preliminary testing showed that the standard PRINT command does not work as expected, with strange formatting happening. Other features of text mode don't seem to work at all like the DISPLAY AT equivalent or the margin setting function. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong... I'll test it out on real hardware tonight and see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Posted November 13, 2016 Share Posted November 13, 2016 If you take a look at my port of "The Valley" (http://www.stuartconner.me.uk/ti/ti.htm#the_valley), that runs on standard TI XB and uses some assembly routines to implement the 40 column mode. Once switched to 40 col mode, all screen printing is done through CALL LINK() routines. There's also Cortex BASIC (http://www.stuartconner.me.uk/ti/ti.htm#programs), which runs in 40 col mode by default. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted November 13, 2016 Share Posted November 13, 2016 doing 40col mode in regular ext basic works "sorta" the issue is really that the screen memory needed for 40col is encroaching on program memory.. so you lose the last 2 lines of screen in 40col mode to that. It's interesting watching my TI-net BBS "think" as you can see the characters updating and changing on the bottom of the screen.. XBII if you want true 40col mode. or cortex basic. Greg 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted November 13, 2016 Author Share Posted November 13, 2016 doing 40col mode in regular ext basic works "sorta" the issue is really that the screen memory needed for 40col is encroaching on program memory.. so you lose the last 2 lines of screen in 40col mode to that. It's interesting watching my TI-net BBS "think" as you can see the characters updating and changing on the bottom of the screen.. XBII if you want true 40col mode. or cortex basic. Greg You wouldn't have XBII for sale, would you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted November 13, 2016 Share Posted November 13, 2016 (edited) I posted it here in another thread will link it to you. It requires a myarc 256 or 512 card or a foundation with xbii roms. And a super cart or other ram device cart to load the loader into. It loads from the dsr auto when it sees ram there.http://atariage.com/forums/topic/251850-yesterdays-news/page-3?do=findComment&comment=3594358 Edited November 13, 2016 by arcadeshopper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted November 13, 2016 Author Share Posted November 13, 2016 If you take a look at my port of "The Valley" (http://www.stuartconner.me.uk/ti/ti.htm#the_valley), that runs on standard TI XB and uses some assembly routines to implement the 40 column mode. Once switched to 40 col mode, all screen printing is done through CALL LINK() routines. There's also Cortex BASIC (http://www.stuartconner.me.uk/ti/ti.htm#programs), which runs in 40 col mode by default. The problem with Cortex Basic is that only 14K is available for programs which will not be enough I think. I can probably roll my own assembly routines for XB as I'm pretty familiar with 40col mode. Could be a fun project 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted November 13, 2016 Share Posted November 13, 2016 The problem with Cortex Basic is that only 14K is available for programs which will not be enough I think. is that the same with the cartridge version? Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted November 13, 2016 Share Posted November 13, 2016 doing 40col mode in regular ext basic works "sorta" the issue is really that the screen memory needed for 40col is encroaching on program memory.. so you lose the last 2 lines of screen in 40col mode to that. It's interesting watching my TI-net BBS "think" as you can see the characters updating and changing on the bottom of the screen.. There are ways around this during program execution, most commonly done by moving the screen table and pattern table at the expense of string space and disk buffers (for controller cards requiring VDP). Many of the XB/assembly hybrid BBS programs maximized string/buffer space by keeping the screen table as-is. And I agree, watching the BBSs "think" is indeed interesting On a related note, a good XB VDP usage reference is found in "The Smart Programmer", May 1984. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted November 13, 2016 Author Share Posted November 13, 2016 is that the same with the cartridge version? Greg Per Stuart's site, yes. The disk version only leaves you with 5K of program space... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted November 13, 2016 Share Posted November 13, 2016 The problem with Cortex Basic is that only 14K is available for programs which will not be enough I think. Imagine if Cortex BASIC could be 'tweaked' to run with the 1024K SAMS card... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted November 13, 2016 Share Posted November 13, 2016 Per Stuart's site, yes. The disk version only leaves you with 5K of program space... yeah that's not enough ram, need stuart to support ams! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted November 14, 2016 Share Posted November 14, 2016 yeah that's not enough ram, need stuart to support ams! Oh, that would be a dream... all that extra memory to work with the current 80 column capability of Cortex BASIC! Don't get me excited... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Lee Stewart Posted November 14, 2016 Share Posted November 14, 2016 Just for cross-reference purposes for casual readers: A little off topic, I suppose—but, fbForth, TurboForth and TI Forth, all work in 40-column text mode—in fact, default to that mode. ...lee 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted November 14, 2016 Share Posted November 14, 2016 Sadly this old dog it too old to learn new tricks like any variant of Forth. Even if I did have the time, my memory is going... I'm afraid BASIC is it for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted November 14, 2016 Share Posted November 14, 2016 Just for cross-reference purposes for casual readers: A little off topic, I suppose—but, fbForth, TurboForth and TI Forth, all work in 40-column text mode—in fact, default to that mode. ...lee Hi Lee, maybe you have some comments on my Forth-entries ? Especially for 40/80COL (80 with F18A). thx xXx UPDATED: ("SAMS" in the list does not mean "required", but supported) TI-99-4A-SW-FORTH-v1.02.pdf thx to Lee for more infos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted November 14, 2016 Share Posted November 14, 2016 I'm pretty sure Mike McCann never made more of the Avanti-99 card than his initial prototype board. The problem there was that they stopped production of the native Forth processor chip right about the time he was building the prototype, and he wasn't able to get enough chips to make further development worthwhile. . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted November 14, 2016 Author Share Posted November 14, 2016 I'm pretty sure Mike McCann never made more of the Avanti-99 card than his initial prototype board. The problem there was that they stopped production of the native Forth processor chip right about the time he was building the prototype, and he wasn't able to get enough chips to make further development worthwhile. . . What is the Avanti-99 card? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted November 14, 2016 Author Share Posted November 14, 2016 Oh, that would be a dream... all that extra memory to work with the current 80 column capability of Cortex BASIC! Don't get me excited... Unfortunately Cortex Basic in it's current TI version does not support sound or speech nor automatic sprites nor any I/O functions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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