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Atari Pascal Language System Example Programs


Bill Lange

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I just checked out your webpage with the example programs. Thank you for posting those examples! I hope that you will continue to add to the list as you come across more Pascal programs. I remember learning UCSD Pascal on an Apple II back in the day -- it is nice to see Pascal programs running on an Atari 8-bit also.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've added some more example programs from the David Fox book, "Pascal Primer". I also added info on setting up an Altirra development environment, using the Atari Program-text Editor to create/edit Pascal source files in 40 columns, and using the XEP80 and AtariWriter 80 create/edit Pascal source files in 80 columns:

 

 

Inside Atari Pascal

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Cool stuff! My first (and really only) exposure to Pascal was using OSS Personal Pascal on my 1040ST back in college. It was a great experience and so much more powerful than the frankly awful ST BASIC Atari released with the machine. I used Pascal to code most of the stuff I needed to write earning my undergraduate engineering degree (at least to the extent we weren't required to code them up in GW-BASIC on the DOS PC's in the computer labs).

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I've been enter Pascal example programs using Altirra with a virtual XEP 80 and Atari Writer80. I've been seeing some goofy issues with Atari Writer 80 such as when you cursor key down past the first screen full of data, the editor jumps to the bottom of the document. Also lines were getting messed up when deleting. I'm not sure if these are issue with AtariWriter80 itself, the virtual XEP80 or because I'm running these under Altirra. I've switched over to Jonathan Halliday's The Last Word program. I'm liking it so far.

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Here is a video of the scrolling issue I'm seeing in AtariWriter 80 running in Altirra 3.10 with a virtual XEP80.

 

Right around time stamp 26 seconds, you can see I'm scrolling down paste the first page of the document. When I get to the last line of that first page, AtariWriter80 jumps to the very end of the long document.

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I've been seeing some goofy issues with Atari Writer 80 such as when you cursor key down past the first screen full of data, the editor jumps to the bottom of the document. Also lines were getting messed up when deleting. I'm not sure if these are issue with AtariWriter80 itself, the virtual XEP80 or because I'm running these under Altirra.

 

These sound like the same issues reported in a review of AtariWriter 80 by Matthew Ratcliff in the December 1989 Antic: https://archive.org/details/1989-12-anticmagazine/page/n21

 

"The only noticeable glitch of AtariWriter 80 is that often, while pressing [CONTROL] [DOWN ARROW] to scroll the display down one line at a time, the display jumps to the end of the document, as if [sELECT] were pressed. This is best avoided by employing the [OPTION] [DOWN ARROW] to move down a page at a time, a reliable function.

 

While composing this article, I began deleting some characters with [CONTROL] [DELETE]. Garbage started appearing at the bottom of the display, and soon the lower half of the screen was a mess. However, all my display problems cleared up when I shut off the 1040ST system nearby. I suspect the ST was creating some interference with communications between the 800XL and XEP80.

 

Maybe because I don't do much word processing on the 8-bit any more, it seemed to me that AtariWriter 80 misses keys occasionally. When typing rapidly, a blank space may show up instead of the letter pressed, or letters are missing entirely. The keys on my 800XL are much stiffer than on my PC AT compatible, so the cause could be my lack of regular practice on the 800XL. I also experienced similar problems with Turboword from Micromiser."

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confirmed...

I wonder if this happens on all versions of AtariWriter80 or if it was fixed up in other releases. Beings it was reviewed in a magazine you would hope there was a fixed version or patch... I used the option keys with the arrows... makes you wonder why they decided to change things though. Left overs from the previous version they built on...

Edited by _The Doctor__
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Hi!

 

There seems to be a bug in the ABS() function.

 

attachicon.gif2019-03-13_22-24-51.png

 

attachicon.gif2019-03-13_22-29-14.png

Well, (-151 AND $7FFF) is exactly 32617, so it seems that whoever programmed the ABS function forgot that the integers are stored as twos complements and not as sign/magnitude. Perhaps the ABS function expected a floating point value?

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