The Last Word 3.1 Released

[flashjazzcat]

OK - BWDOS compatible Beta version of 3.11 here:

 

LW311BT1.xex

 

Please test and let me know how you get on. I don't think this DOS supports "GET CURRENT PATH" CIO command, so I've programmed it out (was getting error 168). Seems to be working fine.

 

Note this is a feature-incomplete version of 3.11 so please treat it as such.

 

Anyway, I've been reading the manual and this is a good DOS. I'm happy to add support for it.

[+Roydea6]

OK! This seems to be working I have tested most functions.

^A & ^Z works as original

^V views the file ok

^K change colors

^J Load and views a file also from a subdirectory

^L Load files ok from H: and subdirectory

^N Loads Fonts ok

^M Loads macros ok

^Q Loads and saves CFG OK

^D Load directory ok but as you know #168 error

^S Save OK remembers subdirectory

s^W Changes to 40 columns ok

 

I haven't been able to get Banks set with LW.sys

 

80 columns are great..

[flashjazzcat]

Word wrap toggle won't work, since this is temporarily chopped out to save space. The banking routines will need to be adapted, since LW tries to intelligently sense RAMdisks, and I haven't yet investigated BWDOS's banking scheme.

 

Glad it's working for you, though, and thanks!

[+Roydea6]

I aslo have Textpro 5.2 on this partition and in the ^M directory menu the < & > jumps properly back and forth between different subdirectories. So which ever CIO call Textpro uses is getting to the correct directory. Last Word is working very good the way is now. I just shifted some files around and I have them all in one. I put LW311BT1.XEX in the DOS directory and made a batch file.

 

CWD TLWORD>

<DOS>LW311BT1.XEX

CWD <

 

 

[+Roydea6]

Well it doesn't work with HI SIO. And a lot of keystrokes not working with MyIDE. I have a 32n1 OS by Atarimax and I tried both MyIDE roms that I have installed, but they are both patched with HISIO version 1.2 by Hiassoft.

 

I was using the emulator ealier with the new 4.4 Myide roms that aren't patched with the HI SIO, but I don't have these roms loaded into my 32n1 OS yet.

Edited January 27, 2010 by rdea6

[flashjazzcat]

HI SIO will likely clatter the DLIs, which is just cosmetic but I recommended keeping the baud rate reasonably modest for that reason. Are you getting screen corruption, or something else? Not sure if there would be any other issues, and I don't have my MyIDE fitted yet to test it. I gather MyIDE has a lot of stuff attached to the SHIFT+CTRL keys, which is a drawback in my opinion (first XLEnt makes liberal use of these keystrokes too, as do lots of other apps). MyIDE intercepts many of these keystrokes and they'll never be seen by LW's keyboard handler. The bells and whistles changes to the OS are just one of the things that will keep MyIDE off my main machine.

 

At the moment, LW is in a limbo thinking it's running under MyDOS when running under BWDOS: a few tweaks to the file selector will have directory traversal working fine.

[Wrathchild]

I was using the emulator ealier with the new 4.4 Myide roms that aren't patched with the HI SIO

Is there an emulator with MyIDE emulation around? Adding something like this to one of the emulators

(Atari800WinPLus or Atari++) was somewhere on my vast list of Atari 'things to do' but fantastic if it has been done already!?

[flashjazzcat]

Is there an emulator with MyIDE emulation around? Adding something like this to one of the emulators (Atari800WinPLus or Atari++) was somewhere on my vast list of Atari 'things to do' but fantastic if it has been done already!?

I thought he was just using the MyIDE ROM image instead of the OS ROM image for testing purposes.

 

All this talk about XBWDOS, MyIDE and SpartaDOS 3.x really got me to thinking today, and I've come up with a way of moving all the code out from under the OS ROM and into conventional and extended memory. This will mean the next major revision of LW will again work with SpartaDOS 3.x, DOS XE, and just about every other DOS in existence. The only requirement will be a machine with at least 128K of RAM, so this will be the first version which won't run on a stock 800XL. There'll be lots more code space, though, so all those things (such as menus) which I've had to leave off the program so far will make an appearance. Most of the queries I get from users are either from people looking for features already present in the program but which they can't find, or people who want to use it with Sparta 3.x or a soft-OS. The rest concern the keyboard shortcuts, and adding menus would take the pressure off the keyboard.

 

The road map for LW is basically the imminent version 3.11, which is basically a minor revision of 3.1, followed by 4.0, which is the VBXE version for stock 64K machines (and it won't be much different from the VBXE Beta version). After that will come the 130XE and up version, in both VBXE and "standard" flavours. This is all happening in parallel to the GUI work, and the aim is to ultimately bring all these technologies together in a graphical operating system with a fairly serious word processor as it's killer app. While the LW versions will be coming out during the spring, I envisage the GUI taking considerably longer.

[+Roydea6]

For me the Myide is great for a gaming machine that can go on trips to see grandkids, and relatives. My Exwife still 'Groans' when I show up with my atari equipment. Although now all I have to take along is powersupply and cables, with stock Atari 800xl. It keeps the kids interested for atleast a couple of hours...

[flashjazzcat]

Well, I'm gonna pick a machine for MyIDE tomorrow and give it a whirl. I hope it's not in poor taste, but I would observe that Atari (and other retro computer) equipment in general, if not used in moderation, is an excellent means of obtaining an ex-wife!

 

I should mention to those interested that LW 3.11 is coming along quite nicely (that's the one with the long-awaiting super-fast editing).

[+Stephen]

Well, I'm gonna pick a machine for MyIDE tomorrow and give it a whirl. I hope it's not in poor taste, but I would observe that Atari (and other retro computer) equipment in general, if not used in moderation, is an excellent means of obtaining an ex-wife!

Well, I will mention something that definitely is in poor taste. My Ataris have been faithfully entertaining me since 1982 which is more than I can say for the fairer sex

 

P.S.

No - my gf doesn't read AtariAge or I would never post this!

 

Stephen Anderson

[flashjazzcat]

I have to say my wife is astoundingly tolerant of my Atari hobby, which I unleashed on her completely out of the blue when I revived it a few months after we got married. She already had the intense competition of my guitar to contend with, and now refers to this and my PC as "my two wives", and herself as merely my mistress.

[+bf2k+]

Well, I'm gonna pick a machine for MyIDE tomorrow and give it a whirl. I hope it's not in poor taste, but I would observe that Atari (and other retro computer) equipment in general, if not used in moderation, is an excellent means of obtaining an ex-wife!

 

 

It worked for me!

[flashjazzcat]

LOL.

[MEtalGuy66]

Just an oppinion here: It's much more important to support disk based versions of SpartaDOS correctly than it is for it to work with MyIDE..

[flashjazzcat]

Experiments with MyIDE are on hold for the moment anyway: I managed to get it seated in my 1MB 800XL but it wouldn't boot consistently. I don't have the time to troubleshoot it at the moment, so I'll look at it again another day. I'm already one XL down so far today...

[+Stephen]

Experiments with MyIDE are on hold for the moment anyway: I managed to get it seated in my 1MB 800XL but it wouldn't boot consistently. I don't have the time to troubleshoot it at the moment, so I'll look at it again another day. I'm already one XL down so far today...

Sounds like you've been having my luck lately. Seems like every machine I touch ends up not working for a while.

 

Stephen Anderson

[flashjazzcat]

Well, all ended well in a way because having given up on MyIDE for the moment, I refitted the INTSDX in the 1MB 800XL after socketing the MMU and it's a fine looking job if I say so myself. Because the MMU is now in a socket, the four wires to the mainboard points where the four lifted MMU legs used to be are routed nicely under the cartridge pylon and round to the back of the board. This is fast becoming my favourite machine.

 

I just wish I hadn't spent so long messing around with the iron today, though, because now I'm playing catch-up with the programming. Not too disastrous a day, though: The other 800XL didn't work before I started (it was minus the MMU), and it still doesn't work so I'm no worse off. Unfortunately I appear to be down by MMUs to the tune of 3 (one original damaged today, and two new spares found not to work).

Edited January 28, 2010 by flashjazzcat

[flashjazzcat]

More thoughts on the "Pro" version of LW: anyone fancy 32K text buffers? Or even 48K?

 

I think I've figured out how to use multiple extended banks for single text buffers without expensive RAMdisk-like memory abstration slowing down the screen refresh. Some quite heavyweight memory move routines (shifting information between banks) will be required, but the basic work I'm doing on moving everything out from under the OS ROM will require a lot of complex bank switching anyway. Even before multi-bank text buffers are implemented, I'm having to shift the code which accesses the text banks (which will now ALWAYS be outside of conventional memory) outside of the $4000-$7FFF region. The easiest way to do this is to replace literally hundreds of instances of direct addressing of the text bank with a call to a routine in "safe" RAM. This should make the code pretty mobile. The refresh routine - which is the most speed-critical of the lot - can be placed outside the banked region and address the extended memory in the quickest way possible. Moving code from the OS range into $4000-$7FFF automatically yields an extra 2K of code space, and with the indirect calls to extended memory, we can merrily devote a bank of RAM purely to program code, giving an extra 18K which should be enough for anything I could want to add. The mutli-bank buffers will be tricky, but I'm keen to move away from the 16K limitation on file size.

Edited January 29, 2010 by flashjazzcat

[flashjazzcat]

Anyone know where the SpartaDOS 3.x run vector is in COMTAB (for a re-run from DOS)? Can't seem to find it in the docs and my old source code is out of reach. I recall the vector had to be set explicitly by the app for "RUN" to work.

 

The version I'm working on will re-run after an exit to disk-based SpartaDOS (as did LW 2.1). All documents in extended RAM remain intact, providing you didn't do any file copying or load any external commands.

 

Speaking of extended RAM, I'll have SpartaDOS 3.x RAMdisk detection to contend with. Anyway, moving the program code out from under the OS ROM and forcing the main text buffer into extended RAM actually frees up 6K. This should be adequate for all the extras I want to add. I'm thinking of doing the 40 column mode in hi-res (like the 80 column mode), so I can have two fonts on screen at once: a "system" font for the file selector and status area, and a user selectable font for the text window and input fields. This will also make it possible to define a whole bunch of special characters for the menus/dialogue boxes/etc, without interfering with the international characters. It ought to be possible to accomplish a great deal with an extra 6K of memory.

 

Also - I'm considering putting the main text buffer under the OS ROM on non-expanded machines, so even this pro version will still run on a stock 64K machine if it has to (albeit with a 14K text buffer).

 

Dunno why I didn't do things this way back in 1999...

[Fox-1 / mnx]

From the BeWe-DOS manual:

 

+0: COMTAB - At this point, there is an instruction for starting the CP. You can use the instruction "JMP ($0A)" under any DOS; it will allways start a CP, DUP menu, or something like that.

[flashjazzcat]

The one I'm looking for is not for an exit to the CP. It's for DOS's own "RUN" command, which - when supplied without an argument - jumps back into the last loaded application.

[Rybags]

Maybe do a quick/dirty program that you can load in the emulator under that DOS - then do a search for the runadr as data bytes.

[flashjazzcat]

I'm being lazy. I can't remember where I found the info originally, but back in 1999 when writing LW 1.0, I realized the RUN command wasn't working properly and I somehow located a vector which had to be set (perhaps it defaulted to using the last run/init address). It'll be buried in the LW 2.1 source code, which is either on an ATR somewhere or worse yet on a floppy disk!

 

In any case, your method will work, since it should indeed hold the run/init address somewhere in COMTAB.

 

...when all else fails, read the manual. It's RUNLOC, COMTAB+61 (as per SpartaDOS Construction Set manual).

Edited January 31, 2010 by flashjazzcat

[flashjazzcat]

Someone remind me why I do this! It's taken me about four hours' of precision debugging using Altirra's marvellous tools to get LW's screen display to appear (rather than a black void) using revised code no longer seated under the OS ROM. Awful, fiddly, seemingly thankless work. The fact that the code now sits under the banked window which holds the text has been a trickier trick than I'd expected.

 

Most of the access to the banked text buffers will be via subroutines which replace individual indexed LDA/STA operations with code wrapped in bank switching routines. The PORTB values are pre-masked, so that there's no EOR/AND/OR stuff to do when bank switching: just an STA from a value in a table. Time-critical stuff (such as screen refresh) will be done with the text bank presistently switched in for optimal speed. Using a system of markers and a virtual addressing system, I hope to implement text buffers in extended RAM of at least 32K in size. It will appear as a seamless, contiguous space, and you'll still be able to edit several files at once. I believe PaperClip used a similar system (I'm assuming so, since it reports large amounts of free space on a 130XE).

 

I may start a blog if it gets interesting: I'm sure these code ramblings are of interest to about three people. I may ring the Samaritans if I hit another serious bug, since the wife's no help!