Turbo-Basic XL on Cartridge

[morelenmir]

I have been aware of Turbo-Basic for many years but never done any experimentation with it beyond typing in a couple of magazine listings back in the late 1980's. The fact it needed to boot from a disk tended to put me off for some reason. However I recently came across this Wiki page:

 

https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=TURBO-BASIC%20XL

 

Among many other downloads it offers a *.CAR, along with something whose filename suggests it can be 'built in' to an XE instead of the normal Atari BASIC. However, as I understand it the maximum size of any BASIC that can be written to an E/EEPROM or a device like the U1MB is 8K. Perhaps this version of Turbo-Basic makes use of the room set aside for the XEGS 'game' ROM in some way?

[flashjazzcat]

Not sure how the ROM versions are put together, but since Turbo BASIC sits under the OS ROM and therefore comprises 16K of code at the very least, it won't fit into any 8K U1MB slot.

[peteym5]

The version I am aware of copies contents under the OS and disables the cartridge. TurboBasic XL uses a lot of self-modifying code, so running directly from ROM will not work. Otherwise, a Williams or AtariMax may work since they only occupies 8K for $A000 to $BFFF, bank switches occur with an access to the $D500 + bank number.

Edited September 27, 2018 by peteym5

[_The Doctor__]

tbxl 1.4 was 14 k and ran on the 800, now if it were adapted to cartridge form, could 2 8k block be accessed or would it be better served to put load half like a translator and and leave half car rom...

[morelenmir]

I think MrFish was involved in preparing some of the ROM's--therefore I have no doubt they work as advertised. But, as FJC says the 32K ROM that is rather mystifyingly ladled 'built-in' won't fit in 8K of BASIC EEPROM nor an alternative like the U1MB. So... I think UltimateCart would probably work if you ran the provided *.CAR image through the HTML cartridge conversion programme that ElectroTrains wrote.

 

In regards TBXL itself; I really would like to use it as my default BASIC given how highly it is regarded, not to mention its greatly improved speed over Atari BASIC. However, on the latter score Altirra BASIC is pretty dam fast and that really is a direct 'drop in' replacement--only it still uses the stock OS FP code. Therefore I am now looking at getting the best of both worlds with Altirra BASIC in tandem with one of the custom OS ROMs that improve on the slow FP routines--MyBIOS seems the obvious choice. That has nothing to do with TBXL though!

[Wrathchild]

These days I would have thought more people would consider using Altirra Basic for their main basic as this supports a degree of what TB provides, is much much faster than Atari's Basic and can be loaded from multiple formats

[flashjazzcat]

I imagine the 32KB 'built-in' ROM pertains to this modification:

 

http://blog.3b2.sk/igi/post/ATARI-TURBO-BASIC-in-EPROM.aspx

[ivop]

SIC! Cart with all of Turbo Basic:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/204330-sic-cart-conversions/?do=findComment&comment=2637730

 

It does not run from ROM but instead "prepares" your 800XL as if it were booted from disk very quickly.