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RXB - Rich Extended Basic


Bones-69

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I have continued to run each of the demo disks. I have RXB installed in the second bank of my HSGPL card and REA2012 installed in bank 10.

 

The RXB XB Programs files runs OK from DSK1.LOAD

 

The RXB BATCH DEMO eventually ran OK from DSK1.BATCH. After I corrected the FCOPY item for reasons unknown I had to split the BATCH file into two parts. Then BATCH ran to its completion and then I ran BATCH1.

 

Initially i could not run any of the 3 programs on the RXB AMS DEMO disk from DSK1. The TI would either indicate file not found or lock up the computer. I tried this from RXB and from both REA . I added LOAD to this disk by using the LOADER program and now I can run the AMSTEST and the AMSLDRDEMO programs. However I cannot run the BLOADDEMO program. The program loads but it seems it cannot find the SCRN1 etc files.

 

In what may be a related problem choosing 7 DIRECTORY from either REA modules will not read the two floppy drives DSK1 and DSK2 but will read all the other HRD drives from DSK3 to DSK9 and DSKA. I have a BwG disk controller.

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I had a disk controller long ago that I borrowed for testing and I think it was the BwG Disk Controller. It did have some very odd behaviour.

 

But it did work. So looking at RXB 2112 I found I made a bad copy of BLOADDEMO somehow and it is a bad file?

 

Here is the Bload program you can type in:

100 FOR Z=1 TO 20
110 CALL BLOAD("DSK#.SCRN"&STR$(Z))
120 CALL MOVES("RV",2079,8192,0)
130 NEXT Z
140 GOTO 100

 

The # means any disk will work or you could use "SCS1.XB.RXB.DEMO.SCRN"&STR$(Z)

 

So the meat of the program is the BLOAD and MOVES as you need to move the loaded lower 8K copy from RAM to VDP screen.

 

Here is a much faster AMS version:

100 CALL AMSINIT
110 FOR Z=1 TO 20
120 CALL BLOAD("DSK#.SCRN"&STR$(Z))
130 CALL AMSBANK(Z,Z+20)
140 NEXT Z
150 FOR Z=1 TO 20
160 CALL AMSBANK(Z,Z+20)
170 CALL MOVES("RV",2079,8192,0)
180 NEXT Z
190 GOTO 150

 

 

(I am noting errors you find and will fix them in a update to RXB 2012A as soon as I am sure that is the end of my screwups)

Edited by RXB
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I entered your BLOAD program and it ran as expected. Earlier I had run the AMS version and it was much faster. There is another difference between the two BLOAD demos. In some screens the AMS version shows a black background that prevents some of the text from showing.This was most apparent in the bones display. I found this puzzling because neither of the BLOAD demo programs contain anything that would change screen colour and both programs use the same set of SCRN# programs.

 

My problem with accessing floppy drives from my BwG DC seems to go away provided I enter a space after entering a 1 to catalog DSK1.

 

After I entered the changed BLOAD program I did a SAVE and the program was saved as an XB and not as a IV254 program. I think that I would have gotten a IV254 program had I first run the IV254ONLY program.

 

Would you explain the rationale for having a IV254 style XB program file. Perhaps then I will be able to decide which format I want to use with RXB. I sure do not want to be switching back and forth.

 

BTW for anyone who likes to use Funnelweb (like I do) and who also has a HSGPL card, there is a nice little program named GL (for gram loader) on Thierry's site. I have this GL program on my FW menu and from it I can access any of the modules on my HSGPL card including RXB and REA.

 

I still am not yet comfortable with all the options of RXB but slowly I feel that I am getting there. My main interest is to use BATCH files and to access the SAMS memory card.

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You know you can from REA just type 1 in Directory and it knows you mean DSK1.?

Or in RXB if you Type: CALL CAT(1) it will catalog DSK1. as it knows what you mean.

Or Type: CALL CAT(49) and it knows that is also DSK1. as it knows what you mean.

 

If you have a black screen then put a CALL SCREEN(color) to fix it.

The RXB command CALL MOVES copies then entire VDP memory from 0 to 2079 (0 to >081F)

 

All my XB programs are saved as Internal Variable 254 as when I catalog a drive I can instantly tell what is XB and what is EA.

Except for my BSAVE programs but they are all 32 sector files.

 

As for options the whole point of RXB was to add as many options as could fit into XB.

 

An example is I can write stuff in RXB that would required Assembly or C to pull off. XB is much more easy to write in and debug then these.

Edited by RXB
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  • 4 months later...

I've just started using RXB 2012 this morning (UK) and I must say, it's put a big smile on my face! I love this!

 

Why did TI not make XB like this, I mean, a CALL COINC command really should have been multiple parenthesis from the get-go.

I think the speed increase in the CALL MOTION as well as other commands is astounding, and kind of almost makes you forget the TI is bottlenecked.

 

Fun question: If TI made a V8 saloon car, would they bottleneck the engine to run on 4 cylinders?! ;)

 

I love this program Rich, I've just been through the demo's , it's excellent.

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YES you've included character sets 15 & 16! :D

 

 

The missus just rang, she's coming home in 5 minutes ... but I swear to God as soon as she pisses off to bed I'm making an RXB game!

 

Thanks, not much talk of RXB with everyone focused on Forth lately.

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Well, I've given Forth a try .... and I failed. It completely discombobulated me.

 

So I wanted to stick to familiar grounds but try something new too, and you're Extended Basic is just the thing I needed.

 

Now, unfortunately my time is a little compromised with the woman ... but I've got so many ideas spinning around in my head for new games based around RXB.

 

One thing I do want to do is re-write Arlington Horse Racing. The sprite motion in RXB is the main reason, I want to make the horses move in 2-cell animation like before, with they're drop shadows included, and also this time have something scrolling at the bottom of the screen, like a fence or maybe advertising boards, just to make the animation look a little more awesome. All of this is possible in RXB. I have to bear in mind the 4-sprite glitch so people with the real metal can play it too.

 

See, the way I see it , I like to use Harry Wilhelm's compiler but we can't do sprites, there's another compiler out there that does sprites but doesn't do sound. RXB is going to give me an edge because of the improvements. It's doing for XB for XB did for TI Basic. It's going to take me a while to get to grips with different methods of coding, but I'll get there and eventually there's gonna be a good few games getting put out that are RXB specific.

 

Good work man. :thumbsup: I'm going to enjoy using this new programming environment.

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...

See, the way I see it , I like to use Harry Wilhelm's compiler but we can't do sprites, there's another compiler out there that does sprites but doesn't do sound. RXB is going to give me an edge because of the improvements.

 

i vote for a RXB compiler :P

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  • 2 years later...

Thanks for the help.

Alright.. I was on whtech,

I didn't think to look in:
ftp://ftp.whtech.com/emulators/cartridges/zip/

I was hanging out in:
ftp://ftp.whtech.com/emulators/cartridges/rpk/

I never loaded a cartridge in MESS. I figured RXB would be a fun start. Awesome... It started up with RXB.

 

[mess ti99_4a -cart1 rxb_2012.rpk -natural]

Edited by slinkeey
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Thanks for the help.

 

Alright.. I was on whtech,

 

I didn't think to look in:

ftp://ftp.whtech.com/emulators/cartridges/zip/

 

I was hanging out in:

ftp://ftp.whtech.com/emulators/cartridges/rpk/

 

I never loaded a cartridge in MESS. I figured RXB would be a fun start.

 

You should always look first in sitelist.txt, which is in the whtech top-level directory.

 

...lee

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Some explanations:

 

The RPK files are cartridges which contain the memory dumps as files and another file (layout.xml) which informs the emulation which file belongs to which part of memory. This was designed mainly by me at times where the user had to install the dumps at the proper locations himself.

 

RPK cartridges have to be installed by giving the path name of the file. That is, you would have to specify /home/michael/mess/carts/editor_assembler.rpk, just like a disk image file.

 

The ZIP files are a more recent format (and have become the standard MAME/MESS cartridge format) which merely differ from the RPK files by not including the XML file, but only the dump files. The layout is defined inside MAME/MESS. The file name is also defined in that file, so the name of the cartridge zip file must exactly match the name in the internal file.

 

Both formats have their pros and cons.

 

RPK: You can have several different instances of a cartridges. For example, you could have two different MiniMemories. Since the memory contents are stored in a file in the nvram folder and not in the RPK, you could modify the layout.xml of one cartridge and change the backup file name. That way, either cartridge has its own saved memory without overwriting one another. Also, you can easily change the cartridge contents, in particular when there are new releases. RXB is such a case. Also, not all RPK features have been included in the zip file handling, in particular we do not have NVRAM definitions, which are required by cartridges like MiniMemory or SuperSpace. Finally, the names for RPKs are completely free to choose, while the zip files must not have names longer than 8 characters plus ".zip". Yes, I complained about that one, with minor success (actually, none).

 

ZIP: The zip format is directly supported by the MAME core. In order to plug in a cartridge you have to specify the name of the cartridge, not the path name of the file. This may be more comfortable in many occasions (much less typing). For Editor/Assembler, the name is "editass". The good thing is that the MAME core can look up the cartridge in case you do not know the exact name, and it tries some fuzzy search:

 

 

./ti99 -cart edit

"edit" approximately matches the following
supported software items (best match first):

* Software list "ti99_cart" (TI-99/4A cartridges) matches:
editass           Editor/Assembler
edasseb           Editor Assembler 1987 / Easy Debugger 2.1
speeched          Speech Editor
edupack           Edu-Pack
pertest           Peripheral Diagnostic Module
alienadd          Alien Addition
earlyrd           Early Reading
addseq            Milliken Math Sequences - Addition
perrecdi          Personal Record Keeping (German/Italian)
readadv           Reading Adventures
readflt           Reading Flight
readtrl           Reading Trail
centipd           Centipede
escape            Escape
blackhl           Black Hole
burgerbd          Burger Builder

FATALERROR: Device TI-99 cartridge load (edit) failed: File not found

 

One of the most important features of zip files are that you can verify the ROM contents. That is, the MAME core rejects cartridges that have modified contents, compared to the fingerprints inside the emulation. Of course, this is only an advantage from the conservation viewpoint; in case of "homebrew" software that is currently still being developed, some devs have proposed to be able to add the definitions as a separate XML file. Maybe I can convince them to use the RPK format for that. At least they seem to have understood my point that I do not plan to remove the RPK support now or in foreseeable future, since it does well what it is intended for.

 

(I confess that I use the zip format increasingly often if the cartridge is actually supported by the zip format ... just for the sake of less typing.)

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On the right part of the QMC2 screen, right at the top there is a field with a row of tabs (starts with "Preview", "Flyer", "Machine Info". Go to the tab "Software list" (you may need to use the arrow buttons on the right).

BIG WARNING

 

Going to "Software list" wiped out all the Device file information that my MESS configurations contained. My nvrom file and its backup are still there but do not seem to load.

 

The above reply does not really answer my question. Up to now I have been putting a .rpk as the file to go to for a cartridge selection. My question was simply to find out if a .zip file will react in the same way as a .rpk file when entered when using QM2C.

 

I hope that there is a simple solution to recover my 4 MESS configurations.

 

On a second look it has only wiped out the TI-99/4A (US) which contained simple FWB configuration with 4 carts and also a similar configuration that added a HSGPL emulation. This HSGPL configuration was a near clone of my real TI-99/4A set up. I still have the MESS TI-99/4A setup with EVPC..

Jacques

 

Edited by jacquesg
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Hmmm ... sorry if that does wipe out anything; I'm not aware of any such side-effect of QMC2. I can check that and give feedback to the QMC2 author.

 

What was actually lost - the QMC2 configuration or the NVRAM files? You should try to run the emulation outside of QMC2 to check whether the NVRAM is still OK.

 

It was actually intended as a reply to your question. The zip files are only selectable via the software list. Actually, as I wrote in my long description above, you do not provide a file name but the name of the cartridge. Within QMC2 this is done in the section for software list. You cannot put the zip file in the place of the RPK file.

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks got RXB 2012 into MESS and attempting to configure MESS for my preferences:

 

GRAMKRACKER or HSGPL card or GRAMULATOR (PGRAM was a hassle to use for GPL rewrites)

SCSI card or some other Hard Drive card

SAMS card

RAMDISK card (prefer the Horizon)

RS232 card

Serial Mouse

Joysticks (using Logitech Gamepad)

EVPC card (or any 80 column card with 128K memory or more)

 

Just stuck my first toe into the MESS and would like any help people can provide.

(I have a mind blowing project for the TI that no one has attempted yet.)

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(I have a mind blowing project for the TI that no one has attempted yet.)

I like this part! (^^^ QUOTED ABOVE ^^^)

 

Tried a few times sitting my toe into MESS, and I always end up getting it chopped off for various reasons, falling back to Classic99 or V9t9 to do stuff outside of my real iron setup.

Edited by Gary from OPA
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Well stuck between a rock and hard spot.

 

Some projects I have done will just flat out not work on Classic99 and some examples are anything with Files or programs.

(Tursi is great for fixing GRAM and other issues to be more user friendly.)

 

Now the workarounds just can not be demoed or used in real iron. Just the advantages and disadvantages of Classic99.

 

I love using Classic99 but it has this issue of being so far off from real iron for some areas.

(Few if you look over the entire package.)

 

Thus a couple of projects are dead in the water only because I use Classic99.

 

Using MESS is a necessity now, and sadly a uphill climb for a new user. But then I was like that for Classic99 as Tursi can attest I have been a pain in the ass.

Edited by RXB
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