DavidC

Yes, I saw that. I will take that leap if a PDF is truly non-existant. Comal should have been the built in language for the C64, it is so much better than the standard BASIC...in my opinion.

I recently discovered COMAL for the Commodore 64 and I am really enjoying it. It is a fantastic language for a beginner. I have been searching the intraweb for any and all .pdfs that I can get my grubby little hands on. One book eludes me. "Commodore 64 Graphics With Comal" by Len Lindsay. Does anyone have the .pdf that they can share with me? I tried all the usual places. No luck...

974 PRINT TAB(8);"~ALPHA KEY UP~" Joystick only. Didnt try Classic99, but I couldn't get it to work on JS99er with my Chromebook.

Line 1950 is messed up. And 900,950,970 triple ::: 1950 CALL GCHARCB,A-1,Q) Thats all I got.

PM sent.

Hey man, I have been dabbling with CAMEL99 and I like it! I have been reading through your instruction manual/tutorial and messing with the demos on .dsk 3. Pretty cool stuff! I like how you have made "modules" I guess I would call them...INCLUDE DSK.1 BASICHLP or whatever...AWESOME! It it obvious you put a lot of thought and work into this. I am still thoroughly confused about a lot of things FORTH but thats just me. CAMEL99 is fantastic. Thanks for all your hard work.

It does the same for me. Works well until I choose a cartridge from the "More" category. I have to shut the page down and reload to get anything to work.

I copy/pasted into JS99er and it ran just fine. Pretty cool game actually..

Yep. Still works!

The only commercial software I ever bought on cassette was Wizards Dominion. I saw it advertised in one of the magazines way back in the early eighties and I HAD TO HAVE IT. Saved up and sent away for it. I was huge into D&D back then. I still have the cassette. I wonder if it still works...

Yeah, I heard about that the other day. Pretty cool!

I am beginning to understand that with my experiments in LOGO, and the differences between each version on whatever platform I run on. (PC with FMSLogo, Terrapin on C64 or TI LOGO II) They are a remarkably similar language, LOGO and Forth. I will save that thought for the LOGO thread. Once I figure out what I am talking about.. I do see your point though, once you get it..you get it.

I am pretty sure the .bin is available. I *Think* it is on the FinalGrom..but I am not 100% sure about that.

@Lee Stewart, oh yes. I read your blog posts many times and worked through the examples you posted. But they suddenly stopped. I understand other circumstances were at play and not a fault of yours. Honestly, the best help I have had as far as learning has come from this thread. Another issue has been the different flavors of Forth for the TI are different in small ways and not compatable. I have tried to stick with just the one, TF, because well...because thats the first one I tried and early on in this thread Willsy was very active, so many years ago. I know he is still here, just busy with real life stuff. His web site is also a treasure trove of information once you figure out what you are reading. The facebook group has been my #2 source when I have questions about simple things. Starting forth by Leo Brodie is a fantastic book, but again not really aimed at Forth on the TI99 and that causes a lot of confusion in and of itself. Any way, this thread is probably the best source for beginners. You guys are super friendly and as a group, this place can't be beat. What I said to GDMike on facebook applies here....There are no stupid questions if it helps you out, and will help someone in the future.

No tape counter though. I bought one at my local walmart last year. I didn't notice the lack of a tape counter until I got home. I returned it. Since then I have been buying any tape recorder I find at flea-markets and thrift stores. I have a nice collection now! 🙂

No, not necessarily a video. Just a good explanation of the basics for newbs. A walkthrough, I guess I would call it. I don't know. Video killed the radio star...a basic understanding of what is what. To put it into regular terms, COMPUTE! magazine had a ton of books published to help people learn just about anything. With screen shots and 300 pages that kept the reader involved with the learning process. Step by Step. I don't know how to say what I mean.. The first few chapters were extra simple, the meat and potatoes were inside once the reader got past the unknown, and the deeper you went, the richer the knowledge. I understand that writing a 300 page book is a huge undertaking and way more complicated and time consuming than it is worth for maybe 20 people that will read the book. So I guess I should shut up now. My train derailed...

Yes, I meant using the editor, putting my words or code or whatever you call it, into blocks and flushing to save them to a disk. That took me forever to figure out. I read thru this entire thread until it dawned on me what to do and how to do it. This thread and other internet resources.

Please. Keep it simple. Simple is a relative term, and very difficult to do in the grand scheme of things. What may be common knowledge to some is a absolute mystery to others. It took me a few days, and more than one book, reading thru threads and whatnot just to figure out how to save simple WORDS on to a disk drive. I still refer to my notes to retrieve said WORDS and believe me when I say they aint that fancy. That is the hardest part, finding the line between a complete newb that wants to learn and someone who already knows the basics and will get bored with the first few chapters. Start out with.."This is how you turn the computer on..." skip this if you already know. Ya know?

@sparkdrummer, man I was able to load and run everything except the stuff on the 99ER.dsk. What is the trick to getting those to work on classic99? Something simple, I am sure.

I found a set of floppys for my breadbin C64 with box and documentation on EBAY, should be here in a week. Boredom strikes again!! I am fascinated with this language though. That ain't no joke.

Wow. I was sitting here bored and figured I would try a super scientific experiment. I loaded classic99 with LOGO II on my laptop and typed: MAKE "X 0 REPEAT 1000 [PRINT :X MAKE "X :X + 1 ] I typed that on the command line, hit enter and timed it with my ultra precision cell phone stopwatch. 25 seconds to count to 1000. I loaded up VICE64 with TERRAPIN LOGO on my laptop and did the same thing. 1 MINUTE 33 SECONDS!!!! To run the exact same code. Could be the difference between the two emulators, could be my laptop runs classic99 better than VICE64, but I don't notice any performance issues playing C64 games, they run fine. The TI99/4a destroyed the Commodore 64. Would love to test this on the real machines. I am going to load LOGO II on the real iron here and see what happens. Ok, I tried it on the real TI. Same thing. 25 seconds.

Yes. I have been scouring the web and that is one of the first sites I bookmarked. I also went crazy on Archive.org and downloaded just about any book I could find, TI related or not (terrapin is pretty close). It is pretty cool.

Most excellent, thank you.

After getting frustrated with pretty much everything, I decided to try TI LOGO II . I know, I know its a language for children. But if you suck at basic, cant wrap your (my) feeble antique brain around Forth and just want to have fun, I find it quite forgiving and accessible. The biggest pain in the ass, for lack of a better term, that people have with TI LOGO is running out of ink for the turtle drawings. But, there is so much more to LOGO than just making designs with the turtle. The Sprites seem very easy to control and designing your own characters is pretty freaking easy. So...have there been any worth while games made using LOGO? Is there any at all? Animations? Anything done with LOGO that is worth .dsk space?

This computer will be digitized and emulated. Virtually.