Setting up FoReM-XE Pro 5.4 - disk full

[tschak909]

Hi. I'm messing around and am setting up FoReM XE 5.4 onto a 16MB disk. So far, have managed to get everything loaded correctly, but when I finally start FoReM-XE, it loops at Initializing, taking up sector after sector, until the disk gets full, and just loops trying to write one more sector...no error messages...what could I be doing wrong ?

 

-Thom

[+bf2k+]

Not sure... did you setup the message bases? I've never has any trouble getting it working here (other than when I modify the hell out of it...)

 

Are you running the Start program first and letting that load foremxe?

 

What is your modem interface?

[tschak909]

n/m found the problem, was missing the Z: Handler, now trying to figure out why it's hanging up after I connect... grrr..

 

-Thom

[tschak909]

My modem interface is the emulated R: in Altirra, which provides a Telnet interface. It looks like i'm going to have to patch the hell out of it to get it to properly connect and pass to the main BBS.

[phaeron]

From what I remember, FXEP is a pain to debug because it constantly has TRAP handlers that hide any problems that occur. Most of the time I had to use the debugger to trap on the BASIC interpreter's write to STOPLN to see what line failed. It also uses EXTEND, which makes it harder to dump the BASIC code live.

 

Two caveats on running it with Altirra. First, there was a bug in Altirra's R: handler that was causing FXEP to rapid-drop connections. You need a 2.50 test build with the following fix in the changelog:

 

* Serial: Fixed control line status from status commands issued between OPEN and XIO 40 (was causing ForemXEP drops).

 

Second, you will have trouble connecting above 2400 baud unless you edit the FXEP code's handling of short response codes, per the FXEP manual. Altirra's modem returns Conexant codes, which differ above 2400 baud from the US Robotics codes that FXEP defaults to. The other way is just to disable serial port throttling.

[tschak909]

Ah, thanks, welp, that answers that.

 

Yes, I've found the result code trapping code, and have been twiddling with it.. guess I'll wait for the next build of Altirra... God FoReM's code is a mess, I had forgotten just how horribly glutenous that BASIC could get, and yeah, trap everything, KEEP RUNNING AT ALL COSTS! EVEN IF IT'S OFF A CLIFF!

 

The error I _was_ having, was because the Z: handler wasn't loaded, and it was just trying and trying again and again to open it, while being hit by a 130 error, only indication of this wound up being the user log, that was being filled up to oblivion.

 

-Thom

 

From what I remember, FXEP is a pain to debug because it constantly has TRAP handlers that hide any problems that occur. Most of the time I had to use the debugger to trap on the BASIC interpreter's write to STOPLN to see what line failed. It also uses EXTEND, which makes it harder to dump the BASIC code live.

 

Two caveats on running it with Altirra. First, there was a bug in Altirra's R: handler that was causing FXEP to rapid-drop connections. You need a 2.50 test build with the following fix in the changelog:

 

* Serial: Fixed control line status from status commands issued between OPEN and XIO 40 (was causing ForemXEP drops).

Second, you will have trouble connecting above 2400 baud unless you edit the FXEP code's handling of short response codes, per the FXEP manual. Altirra's modem returns Conexant codes, which differ above 2400 baud from the US Robotics codes that FXEP defaults to. The other way is just to disable serial port throttling.