fortran99 - any users here

[fortran99 - any users here]

On 3/24/2020 at 1:59 PM, TheBF said:

Considering that it was one of the first (the first?) compiler, made in 1957, it should look archaic today or we are not making progress.

Some would argue that after this much time we should be programming in something other than text but attempts to do that seem to have never had success.

Several graphical programming environments I know about are:

 

* LabVIEW - very resource intensive

* Lego Mindstorms (robotics)

* Scratch

 

Scratch https://scratch.mit.edu/about runs in your browser.  It resembles Mindstorms since both came out of MIT.

 

I would not want to use Scratch much for real programming.  It does have potential to teach kids and beginners about programming.

[Anyone familiar with the ".cq" file format? C source for Lattice or Aztec perhaps?]

13 hours ago, KayBee said:

Well I have the answer, I just received the Start magazine from eBay. The "Q" is due to compression used on the cover disks. In retrospect it makes total sense.

The CP/M convention is that the letter 'Q' replaces the middle letter of the extension of files compressed with the SQ (squeeze) utility.  Use USQ (unsqueeze) to decompress it.

[Learning Assembly]

On 12/20/2019 at 10:34 PM, Tursi said:

It's a mirror of Ernie Pegrem's TI Books page, taken when he decided to take it offline. 

http://harmlesslion.com/tibooks/

 

And yours has disk images; the other one does not.

[Assembly on the 99/4A]

How much existing code uses just the register number instead of Rx?

 

Is it worth a mode in which the assembler requires the Rx form?

[Assembly Language]

On 12/20/2019 at 1:02 PM, ParanoidLittleMan said:

In beginning it may be hard, but there is not so much branch condition - 16.

 

 

Amen to that.  They only seem too many until you start using them.

 

Earlier in the year, I started implementing clones of the old Space Voyage game for the SWTPC 6800 on other platforms.

 

In the original 6800 version,

 

Quote

 0180 BD 1045           [9] 00374    SETUP0   jsr       RANDOM    ; Setup number of Klingons
 0183 81 FC               [2] 00375                  cmpa   #$FC         ;   in each quadrant
 0185 23 04 (018B)    [4] 00376                  bls       SETUP1     ; Probability low for 4

 

has to be written on the 6502,

 

Quote

 0399 20 15B0              [6] 00238    SETUP0    jsr      RANDOM        ; Setup number of Klingons
 039C C9 FD                 [2] 00239                   cmp    #$FC+1         ;   in each quadrant
 039E 90 05  (03A5)   [2/3] 00240                   bcc     SETUP1         ; Probability low for 4

 

due to the lack of a bls instruction.

[Assembly Language]

8 hours ago, zzip said:

Same,  68K seemed a lot more elegant to me at the time.   Also  had to learn x86 assembly for school at the same time I was teaching myself 68K.   I hated x86 assembly,  this was before the 386 flat memory/protected mode,  and coding for the segmented memory was a pain in the ass as I recall. 

Segmentation on the x86 is something that the programmer had to get used to managing.  I have done so much of it that it is second nature.

 

The ironic thing is that IBM chose the 8088 for their small computer.

 

The IBM mainframe architecture is notorious for how difficult it was to program.  Addressing required using a base register.  A section of code started with a BALR (BrAnch and Link Register) instruction to get something related to the current program counter into a register.  All other branches must be offsets to that base address.  IIRC, a section of code is limited to 4K bytes, so any sizeable program had to be broken up into small pieces.

[Assembly Language]

On 10/22/2019 at 11:39 PM, Airshack said:

While working on my first Assembly game on the TI-99/4A (TMS9900) I figured I'd try something on the ST next. What's a modern workflow look like using a PC? I travel for a living so I'm looking for some tools I can load up onto a cheap Windows10 machine. Any ideas? Trying to avoid online tools. Need to do much of my work in a no wi-fi area. I can do it all on a Mac if there's tools for Mac. I've always been interested in the 68000. Feeling spoiled with my sixteen 16-bit relocatable registers on the TI.

<snip>

On 10/22/2019 at 11:39 PM, Airshack said:

 

Assuming I'll need similar tools for the ST? Where to begin?

 

-James

 

I do not own real hardware and use Steem and Devpac to do testing.  I use my own cross assembler and emulator to do most of the development; everything so far treats the ST display and keyboard as a TTY.

[Assembly Language]

On 9/8/2019 at 8:50 PM, Wally1 said:

Well

 

after some serious soul searching

 

I have decided to return to 6502

and not pursue 68000 assembly anymore.

 

To me, 6502 is much more elegant and more bang per byte.

 

 

 

I find that programming the 6502 to manipulate 16-bit and larger quantities to be tedious.

 

On 9/8/2019 at 8:50 PM, Wally1 said:

 

I was really barking up the wrong tree with 68K! {i couldnt' stand 'TRAP' or the arbitrary 3,4,5 character mnemonics and i really hated ADDQ instead of INX !}

 

 

 

ADDQ instead of INX bothers me because as an addition operation, it affects the carry (and X) flag whereas an increment or decrement on most processors do not.

[The real reason(s) why TOS is split in 2 parts]

On 8/17/2019 at 4:44 AM, ParanoidLittleMan said:

It is not much known that TOS actually consists from 2 pretty much independent parts:

 

It is probably historical.

 

The first part is derived from CP/M --> Concurrent PC DOS --> DR DOS plus the GSX graphics extensions originally hosted by CP/M.

 

The second part is the GEM GUI.

[Semi-Off-Topic Oddball Coincidence]

Dec 13 was Friday the thirteenth.  The previous Friday the thirteenth was 13 weeks prior; the next one is 13 weeks later...