I Need Help With Turbo-Basic XL Compiling

[777ismyname]

Good morning everyone! For the first time since the late 80s I have decided to mess around with the TBXL compiler...and I need some help

 

For the time being my real 8 bit machines are in storage, so I am running the awesome Altirra emulator (Altirra X64 version 2.81/NTSC/320KB Rambo/H:/various qty. of D:drives using DOS 2.5/etc).

 

I threw together a simple graphics 11 rectangle drawing program (named GRAFX1.BAS) in TBXL to run X number of seconds and benchmarking how many rectangles were drawn in those X seconds. I formatted a virtual DOS 2.5 floppy for D2: and copied over DOS.SYS, DUP.SYS, and RUNTIME.COM. I compiled GRAFX1.BAS using COMPILER.COM on the TBXL virtual floppy in D1: and all seemed to go well, with the resulting GRAFX1.CTB file being produced without error - at least TBXL made no complaints and went about its business.

 

Going back to a DOS prompt to D.2: and binary loading RUNTIME.COM results in the initial TBXL startup screen, but not - not that I can tell at all - running the .CTB file via RUNTIME.COM.

 

Even though I've been playing around on these machines for 35 years, I'm still a relative novice. A novice who would love to speed up his TBXL programs without changing the CPU speed to 14/17/21 MHZ, lol. I've attached the DOS 2.5 disk with the files. If you guys could advise me of what I may have done incorrectly, I would be mighty thankful!

 

The next step is to pay someone to remote in and help me knock it out. Thank you in advance!

TBXL.atr

Edited March 26, 2017 by 777ismyname

[Roydea6]

You should get time at the beginning of programs and subtract beginning time from ending time at end of program. Also the runtime on the disk is actually a miss named Turbobasic interpreter your true RUNTIME is not on the disk atr attached. You could get a linker also to combine the *.CTB with the RUNTIME2.EXE and have a *.COM file..

 

Your floppy should have :

DOS.SYS

DUP.SYS

TURBO.COM

RUNTIME.COM

COMPILER.COM

LINK.EXE

RUNTIME2.EXE

GRAFX1.BAS

GRAFX1.CTB

 

 

TBXL.atr

 

Also get yourself a larger ATR so all programs will have a nice fit with a lot of space left over for more programming files..

 

Edited March 26, 2017 by rdea6

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well, the length of the TB XL Runtime is 88 single sectors, whereas original TB XL has 145 single sectors. To make the Runtime and the CTB file autoload, just rename the Runtime to Autorun.SYS and the CTB file to Autorun.CTB. And do not forget to switch off Basic (hold down the Option key), since TB XL does this automatically, but alas the Runtime does not do this.

 

If you want to have the Runtime and the CTB file as one single/stand-alone ML file, use the CTB-linker, mentioned by rdea6 above. Attached you will find an ATR image of TB XL + Compiler + Runtime and another ATR image with the CTB-Linker (note: I modified the autorun - names in TB XL and Runtime, so with the attached versions you have to use Autorun.TBS for TB XL and Autorun.CPB for the Runtime)...

TBXL_Runtime_CTB_linker.zip

Edited March 26, 2017 by CharlieChaplin

[777ismyname]

You should get time at the beginning of programs and subtract beginning time from ending time at end of program. Also the runtime on the disk is actually a miss named Turbobasic interpreter your true RUNTIME is not on the disk atr attached. You could get a linker also to combine the *.CTB with the RUNTIME2.EXE and have a *.COM file..

 

Your floppy should have :

DOS.SYS

DUP.SYS

TURBO.COM

RUNTIME.COM

COMPILER.COM

LINK.EXE

RUNTIME2.EXE

GRAFX1.BAS

GRAFX1.CTB

 

 

TBXL.atr

 

Also get yourself a larger ATR so all programs will have a nice fit with a lot of space left over for more programming files..

 

 

 

Thank you so, so much! I threw this together at 4:00 AM this morning and fiddled with it until 5:30 AM and am certain there are screwups I'm headed to bed to for a few hours and will use the ATR. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge! This community is absolutely invaluable.

Edited March 26, 2017 by 777ismyname

[777ismyname]

Well, the length of the TB XL Runtime is 88 single sectors, whereas original TB XL has 145 single sectors. To make the Runtime and the CTB file autoload, just rename the Runtime to Autorun.SYS and the CTB file to Autorun.CTB. And do not forget to switch off Basic (hold down the Option key), since TB XL does this automatically, but alas the Runtime does not do this.

 

If you want to have the Runtime and the CTB file as one single/stand-alone ML file, use the CTB-linker, mentioned by rdea6 above. Attached you will find an ATR image of TB XL + Compiler + Runtime and another ATR image with the CTB-Linker (note: I modified the autorun - names in TB XL and Runtime, so with the attached versions you have to use Autorun.TBS for TB XL and Autorun.CPB for the Runtime)...

 

Thank you very much! You two guys have been a tremendous help. It does make much more sense to me now! After posting this early this morning I went into storage and found my 1200XL and 1050. After I catch 3 or 4 hours of zzz I'm going to try to at least find my XF551 from my 65XEGS setup and see if I have the appropriate disks for real hardware. Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

[777ismyname]

I will have to work on something more involved using polygons and some moving objects, I was a bit underwhelmed at the speed difference of the very short compiled program. I did run the old game "Risky Rescue" from ANTIC magazine under TurboBASIC-XL a few minutes ago and the speedup over regular Atari BASIC made the game MUCH more difficult (and the speed of loading virtual discs and H: hard drive type devices make me cringe about saving Risky Rescue to a 410 back in the day). I expect compiled Risky Rescue to be unplayable.