Willsy

Exactly, that's what I was getting at. There's no point in setting L< and A< *after* the instruction executes, since the value will ALWAYS be positive (or 0)! Still, the ED/AS manual goes 'round the houses as usual instead of just damn spelling it out!

Thanks guys. I used xor to do what I needed. I like xor

Does ABS set the flags such that it tells you the sign of the number BEFORE conversion to positive? The explanation in Editor Assembler is rather obtuse, as usual. Mark

Indeed, but the XB object loader is at least half the speed of the ea3 loader, maybe three to four times slower!

Yep - XB EA3 is MEGA slow. I don't know why. Maybe Rich or Tursi can shed some light on it. Mark

Light pen, via the joystick port. Though you don't really need a scan line interrupt at all for a light pen, and none exist for the TI anyway.

Interesting! I'll try and do a version for TurboForth when I have the time. What does the word R do? Mark

Actually, that's a pretty neat idea!

I think the actual values it comes up with are fine for a pseudo random number generator. The only issue is performance. For games etc, one is often generating random numbers inside a loop, so performance is an issue. In the end I added an assembly RND routine to TF which so far seems to give good results, and is of course much faster. It seemed sensible, since I think a number of folks will want to try their hand at using TF for game development. Regards Mark

Yeah! I actually managed to run it in a VM. It runs and I can execute simple code on it. Can't get it to do much else though

Ha! The machine the girl is using is a 4A but the on-screen stuff is a sinclair zx spectrum!

50 FOR NEXT But probably better to put it into it's own routine. A value of about 500 seems about right... : DELAY 500 FOR NEXT ; I also switched MOVE-FROG and DRAW-FROG around. Much better movement now... I didn't notice before as it was all a bit too fast...! Mark 23 VALUE X 1 VALUE C1 4 VALUE C2 8 VALUE C3 12 VALUE C4 35 CONSTANT FROG 36 CONSTANT CAR : SETUP 1 GMODE \ 32 COLUMN MODE 17 4 DO I 15 1 COLOR LOOP \ SET COLORS HEX DATA 4 1899 7E3C 3CBD FF5A DECIMAL FROG DCHAR HEX DATA 4 66FF DBDB DBDB FF66 DECIMAL CAR DCHAR ; : DRAW-FROG X 11 FROG 1 HCHAR ; : MOVE-CARS 12 C1 32 1 HCHAR C1 1+ 32 MOD TO C1 12 C1 CAR 1 HCHAR 14 C2 32 1 HCHAR C2 1+ 32 MOD TO C2 14 C2 CAR 1 HCHAR 16 C3 32 1 HCHAR C3 1+ 32 MOD TO C3 16 C3 CAR 1 HCHAR 18 C4 32 1 HCHAR C4 1+ 32 MOD TO C4 18 C4 CAR 1 HCHAR ; : MOVE-FROG KEY? CASE 69 OF X 11 32 1 HCHAR -1 +TO X ENDOF 88 OF X 11 32 1 HCHAR X 1+ DUP 24 = IF DROP 23 THEN TO X ENDOF ENDCASE ; : FINISHED? X IF FALSE ELSE ." WELL DONE!" TRUE THEN ; : DEAD? X 11 GCHAR CAR = IF ." YOU'RE DEAD!" TRUE ELSE FALSE THEN ; : DELAY 500 FOR NEXT ; : RUN SETUP 23 TO X BEGIN MOVE-FROG DRAW-FROG MOVE-CARS DELAY DEAD? FINISHED? OR UNTIL CR ;

HA! XB Compilers... Pussies! Real men do it in FORTH FORGET X 23 VALUE X 1 VALUE C1 4 VALUE C2 8 VALUE C3 12 VALUE C4 35 CONSTANT FROG 36 CONSTANT CAR : SETUP 1 GMODE \ 32 COLUMN MODE 17 4 DO I 15 1 COLOR LOOP \ SET COLORS HEX DATA 4 1899 7E3C 3CBD FF5A DECIMAL FROG DCHAR HEX DATA 4 66FF DBDB DBDB FF66 DECIMAL CAR DCHAR ; : DRAW-FROG X 11 FROG 1 HCHAR ; : MOVE-CARS 12 C1 32 1 HCHAR C1 1+ 32 MOD TO C1 12 C1 CAR 1 HCHAR 14 C2 32 1 HCHAR C2 1+ 32 MOD TO C2 14 C2 CAR 1 HCHAR 16 C3 32 1 HCHAR C3 1+ 32 MOD TO C3 16 C3 CAR 1 HCHAR 18 C4 32 1 HCHAR C4 1+ 32 MOD TO C4 18 C4 CAR 1 HCHAR ; : MOVE-FROG KEY? CASE 69 OF X 11 32 1 HCHAR -1 +TO X ENDOF 88 OF X 11 32 1 HCHAR X 1+ DUP 24 = IF DROP 23 THEN TO X ENDOF ENDCASE ; : FINISHED? X IF FALSE ELSE ." WELL DONE!" TRUE THEN ; : DEAD? X 11 GCHAR CAR = IF ." YOU'RE DEAD!" TRUE ELSE FALSE THEN ; : RUN SETUP 23 TO X BEGIN DRAW-FROG MOVE-FROG MOVE-CARS DEAD? FINISHED? OR UNTIL CR ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2UXBasc8jw Don't be afraid to ask questions if you want to know how the code works! Mark

Maybe its a bug in the compiler. Try this as an experiment: 192 A=C(1):: IF A=31 THEN A=1:: C(1)=A Repeat this for c(2) to c(5) Let us know what happens.

You can have 32 Sprites on a line if you want with the F18A. It is set with a jumper. However, *if* the *software* (game etc) is looking for 5 or more Sprites on a line then you will still see flicker, as the *game* will be moving the Sprites on and off the screen very fast (which makes them flicker) to try to get around the 4 on a line restriction. There is nothing the f18 can do about this: it can only obey the commands given to it by the host software.

Have a look at scuba dive on the zx spectrum for some beautiful animated under-water graphics...

yes, Guillaume Tello is the author of MLC. Perfect french Guillaume is a nice guy - shame he's not over here on AA.

Sigh...

Here's mine - buried inside the TF ROM ;[ GPLLNK ; This routine is based on the routine published in the July 1986 edition of ; Smart Programmer. Modified by yours truly to allow it be executed from ROM. gplws equ >83e0 ; GPL workspace gr4 equ gplws+8 ; GPL R4 gr6 equ gplws+12 ; GPL R6 stkpnt equ >8373 ; GPL stack pointer ldgadd equ >60 ; load and execute grom address entry point xtab27 equ >200e ; low mem XML table location 27 getstk equ >166c ; cpu register data - this data is copied into >200e onwards, so that it sits ; in R7 onwards gpllnk data glnkws ; [mapped to R7] set up BLWP vectors data glink1 ; [mapped to R8] rtnad data xmlrtn ; [mapped to R9] gxmlad data >176c ; [mapped to R10] GROM address for GPL XML 0F27 opcode data >50 ; [mapped to R11] Initialised to >50 where PUTSTK ; address resides ; this routine runs in it's own workspace, starting at >2000 glnkws equ >2000 ; GPLLNKs workspace of which only registers R7 thru R15 ; are used glink1 li r0,gpllnk ; we need to copy the cpu register data (above) to li r1,>200e ; RAM. R0=Source, R1=Destination li r2,5 ; R2=Word count gpllop mov *r0+,*r1+ ; copy the data above into r7 onwards... dec r2 ; copied all of it? jne gpllop ; loop if not mov *r11,@gr4 ; put PUTSTK address into R4 of GPL WS mov *r14+,@gr6 ; put GPL routine address in r6 of GPL WS mov r9,@xtab27 ; put XMLRTN address into >200e lwpi gplws ; load GPL workspace bl *r4 ; save current GROM address on stack mov @gxmlad,@>8302(r4) ; push GPL XML address on stack for GPL return inct @stkpnt ; adjsut the stack pointer b @ldgadd ; execute our GPL routine xmlrtn mov @getstk,r4 ; get GETSTK pointer bl *r4 ; restore GROM address off the stack lwpi glnkws ; load our ws rtwp ; all done - return to caller ;]

Dynamic. Radix 100. Overall size: 64 bits Power: 8 bits 14 significant digits What he said. Radix 100 is pretty decent, and easier to implement than the IEEE 754 system most modern processors use. Adamantyr Agreed. I quite like it - although the way -tive values are represented are a pain in the ass (only the first two bytes inverted, the rest not) Mark

Does anybody know how many digits there are in front of and behind the decimal point in a TI FP number? Or, is it dynamic (i.e. "floating point" ) Thanks

This sounds great! If there is room/bits spare it would be nice if it could detect coincidence between an "on" sprite pixel and an "on" tile pixel (32 column/64 column) of an on pixel in bitmap mode...?

That feature has been in the debugger for a very long time! Press the ? button in the debugger! Lot's of nice features explained in there!

Yes. I could! <swoon>! And Forth 'assembly' (because that is what it would be) is no more difficult than any other assembly language. It's much simpler than desktop Forth systems; it's just a few instructions like DROP DUP SWAP + - etc. They don't usually have an IF ELSE THEN for example, they have a simple test and jump/don't jump, like any other processor. E.g. 2 3 + (add 2 and 3 - result on the stack) 5 = ( is the value on the stack equal to 5?) JIF xx (jump if false to label xx otherwise continue) Anyway... I digress... Is there a list of the F18A features that go over and above the standard 9918 chip? Mark

Matthew, did you ever think about doing a 9900 or 9995? I'd like something like a 9995 (which is a sanitised version of the 9900 with pipe-lining and the read before write crap removed) with some 32 bit instructions. E.g MOV.L ADD.L. etc etc... 32 bit loads, shifts etc. That would be nice!