Generating P-Code from MS V Basic

[aftyde]

Anyone know if p-code generated from MS Basic or non-UCSD sources has a shot at running on a P-Card.

 

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa240843(v=vs.60).aspx

 

The mainbyte page talks about UCSD basic and pascal generating p-code, but I have never seen USCD basic on the TI99.

 

Anyone know the details?

[+jedimatt42]

A long time ago Microsoft compilers had options to produce p-code, but I believed that to be their own thing so single binaries would work on DEC Alpha or Intel x86.

[witchspace]

Unfortunately not - Microsoft's "p-code" is a completely different thing from UCSD's or Softech's. At some point it was the fashionable term for what we call "bytecode" today.

[+Ksarul]

The UCSD version of BASIC apparently wasn't all that popular on any system that ran the p-System. I have never seen a copy of it anywhere, even though it was listed as available for several systems back then. . .

[apersson850]

To have any chance of running, it must produce p-code for the UCSD PME (P-Machine Emulator) version IV. The p-system operating system version numbering uses the Roman numeral to distinguish between different PME versions (different p-codes) and the Arabic digit to distinguish between variants using the same PME.

 

Then you must also make sure the compiled file contains the necessary information to load properly on a TI 99/4A.

[JamesD]

To have any chance of running, it must produce p-code for the UCSD PME (P-Machine Emulator) version IV. The p-system operating system version numbering uses the Roman numeral to distinguish between different PME versions (different p-codes) and the Arabic digit to distinguish between variants using the same PME.

 

Then you must also make sure the compiled file contains the necessary information to load properly on a TI 99/4A.

The UCSD binary should work on multiple UCSD systems. There is no machine specific info unless you have native libraries for a given system.

It does however have to be the same revision of UCSD.

[apersson850]

What I was thinking about is the language type in the 99/4A. I presume most p-systems don't have to differentiate between code that must be loaded in the CPU RAM memory expansion vs. code that can be loaded in the video memory. I don't know what happens with a code file generated on a system without this flag being handled.