Bill Lange Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 As there didn't seem to be many, I've been "compiling" a collection of example programs for the Atari APX released Atari Pascal Language System: https://insideataripascal.blogspot.com/p/atari-pascal-language-system-example.html 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
irich2 Posted February 7, 2019 Share Posted February 7, 2019 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Lange Posted February 7, 2019 Author Share Posted February 7, 2019 I have a few books that I want to run through and convert the Pascal programs to the Atari Pascal Language System. Its a fun learning experience. I'll try to get the example code available somewhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Lange Posted February 15, 2019 Author Share Posted February 15, 2019 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 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 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). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scitari Posted February 16, 2019 Share Posted February 16, 2019 Rock on Bill! Thanks for putting this awesome resource together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Lange Posted March 10, 2019 Author Share Posted March 10, 2019 I believe that I found a bug in the Atari Pascal Language System that I'm calling the "READ CHAR" bug. I detail it here. I was able to work around it using "peeks" and "pokes". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Lange Posted March 10, 2019 Author Share Posted March 10, 2019 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. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted March 10, 2019 Share Posted March 10, 2019 please attach your aw80 etc, and I'll give it a test... I don't remember it happening like that on real hardware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Lange Posted March 10, 2019 Author Share Posted March 10, 2019 (edited) I'm using Altirra 3.10 with XEP80 on. I can make a video tomorrow of what I'm seeing, if needed. AtariWriter80_b_XE-working.ATR Edited March 10, 2019 by Bill Lange 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Lange Posted March 10, 2019 Author Share Posted March 10, 2019 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Lange Posted March 12, 2019 Author Share Posted March 12, 2019 I've add about a half a dozen more Atari Pascal example programs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 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." 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Lange Posted March 12, 2019 Author Share Posted March 12, 2019 Thanks for posting that. I'm glad its not just my setup having AtariWriter 80 issues. I've moved on to The Last Word. This word processor is working much better for me. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted March 13, 2019 Share Posted March 13, 2019 (edited) 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 March 13, 2019 by _The Doctor__ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Lange Posted March 14, 2019 Author Share Posted March 14, 2019 (edited) There seems to be a bug in the ABS() function. Edited March 14, 2019 by Bill Lange Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted March 14, 2019 Share Posted March 14, 2019 I am guessing this is not a bug, but due to the fact that INTEGER would only be an 8-bit variable. If signed, that means -128 to 127. -151 overflows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Lange Posted March 14, 2019 Author Share Posted March 14, 2019 (edited) Possibly. I'll have to double check the documentation when I get a chance. I added some more info here. Edited March 14, 2019 by Bill Lange 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmsc Posted March 14, 2019 Share Posted March 14, 2019 Hi! There seems to be a bug in the ABS() function. 2019-03-13_22-24-51.png 2019-03-13_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? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Lange Posted March 14, 2019 Author Share Posted March 14, 2019 (edited) My own simple ABS2() function works. I tried passing a REAL, but the compiler chocked on that. I also tried a negative number < -127 and still give the wrong answer. Edited March 14, 2019 by Bill Lange Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted March 14, 2019 Share Posted March 14, 2019 This is why I hate using compiled languages. Stuff like this can make you crazy debugging: Is it me or is it the compiler ? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Lange Posted March 14, 2019 Author Share Posted March 14, 2019 I knew it was going to be buggy going in. :-) I wanted to kick the tires and try to see why it failed as an official Atari product and as a APX product. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddtmw Posted March 14, 2019 Share Posted March 14, 2019 When I was in high schoool, we got a bunch of Apple ]['s and I took a programming class where we programmed in UCSD Pascal. Does anyone know if that was released for Atari and/or what flavor of Pascal Atari Pascal is? Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Lange Posted March 14, 2019 Author Share Posted March 14, 2019 Does anyone know if that was released for Atari and/or what flavor of Pascal Atari Pascal is? I used UCSD Pascal on the Apple II in high school as well. UCSD wasn't released for the Atari, but there were: Available Atari 8-bit Pascal Packages Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Lange Posted April 4, 2019 Author Share Posted April 4, 2019 Steve Boswell created some nice artwork for the header on my Inside ATARI PASCAL blog. He designed a retro-looking ATARI 400/800 "Computing Language" style big box as if Atari Pascal was released in Atari's main line catalog back in the Ferg rather than the APX catalog. Thanks again Steve! Bill 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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