+InsaneMultitasker Posted September 17, 2019 Share Posted September 17, 2019 Some decisions are difficult to reach and even harder to communicate. After careful consideration and with 8+ years of nearly continuous operation, the time has come to gracefully retire Heatwave BBS. It will stay online through September 2019 with a possible extension through December. Mad Hatter and I truly appreciate the support of those who called and promoted the BBS. It's been a fun ride. Additionally, I am suspending hardware upgrade/repair efforts and no longer accepting new requests. My workbench is clear of customer-owned cards and broken cards for the first time in over a decade. There are two pending engagements that I will follow through to completion - with one that may result in some hardware coming available to the community. Please know that there is no recent event that triggered my decisions, no bad actors causing a stir. It mostly boils down to three years of post-surgery introspection and personal feelings about my hobby efforts, and the realization that in order for me to keep moving forward, I need to make a few changes. I haven't given much thought to my programming projects (including MDOS development) or my Geneve/TI hardware. For now, I simply want/need to narrow my focus a bit then see where that leads me. -T 6 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 Thank you for all you have brought to, and given to this community as well as all the fun and enjoyment from the BBS. I can totally understand where you are coming from and understand the need to make adjustments in life. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+9640News Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 Tim, I would say "stop", and breathe the fresh air, however I suspect right now you are getting hammered with the tropical storm hitting your neck of the woods. Either way, enjoy the mental break. Go do something fun. Go scuba dive, powered paragliding, or take up golf. Enjoy life!!! Beery 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 The end of an era... Thank you for keeping it going for so long. And yes, Beery's advice is a sound one I need to visit him someday and get a crash course on that powered paragliding thing... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+9640News Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 2 hours ago, Vorticon said: The end of an era... Thank you for keeping it going for so long. And yes, Beery's advice is a sound one I need to visit him someday and get a crash course on that powered paragliding thing... Let's avoid the crash part of the course.......... 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shift838 Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 I think we all understand and do appreciate all your efforts giving the communnity a place to connect as well as performing hardware upgrades / repairs. I know one card that gave you hell and our pure dedication to bring it back to life was amazing. Thank you Tim! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+retroclouds Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 Thank you Tim for all the efforts and all you give to the community! It is much appreciated! We all need a break once in a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted September 18, 2019 Author Share Posted September 18, 2019 Many of the same sentiments were echo'd by my better 'half'. And when I mentioned the no longer running the BBS she said,"you can always extend the date." So wise. I am not prone to continually changing my mind, so for now the 'December extension' may be the best, right approach for me and all involved. And thank you, Beery, where I live it is more of a light sprinkle. 20 miles south at the rehab center it was torrential rain and further toward Houston/Galveston there were flash flood warnings being issues. I certainly hope the storm does not stall out and flood the city once again.... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 Thanks, Tim--you have been a major support to this community for many years, and taking a break is definitely a good thing. Do what you must to make things work out right in YOUR life. We'll still be here jawing about our oldie machine and having fun, and your presence in that circle of friends is always a welcome one. I cherish your friendship, now and in the future--so please don't be a stranger, so long as that presence fits into your chosen path. Looks like I will need to set up my test bench in a more permanent fashion now too, especially as I'll soon have some HRD4000B boards to dig into. . . LOLOL 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickyDean Posted September 19, 2019 Share Posted September 19, 2019 Thanks Tim, for the help back in thee day in modifying my Geneve to PFM+ and for your contributions to our hobby. I still see youand Mike as the Gods of SCSI ? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOME AUTOMATION Posted September 19, 2019 Share Posted September 19, 2019 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted September 19, 2019 Author Share Posted September 19, 2019 18 hours ago, Ksarul said: -so please don't be a stranger, so long as that presence fits into your chosen path. Looks like I will need to set up my test bench in a more permanent fashion now too, especially as I'll soon have some HRD4000B boards to dig into. . . LOLOL TI hobbies and work take longer than in real life Looking forward to playing with a HRD4000B myself... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted September 19, 2019 Share Posted September 19, 2019 8 hours ago, InsaneMultitasker said: TI hobbies and work take longer than in real life Looking forward to playing with a HRD4000B myself... And you will have plenty of opportunity to do just that, Tim. . . 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted September 23, 2019 Author Share Posted September 23, 2019 Speaking of things taking a long time, this weekend I had the urge to revisit running BBS software on the Geneve using Myarc Advanced BASIC. The advantages include all-assembly interpreter so it is quite fast, 48K of assembly routine space, and 56k of program space. I forget how much stack space is available - probably 48k. Back in 2013 I fixed a bug that inhibited passing parameters with CALL LINK but I had trouble with IO routines. Well, thanks to some suggestions from Beery I was able to find a solution. Here is the SysOp side of the BBS running in 80 columns natively in Advanced BASIC. (For my testing I am using the 2004 distribution package). The top status line is still formatted for 6 lines of 40 column text (3 x 80). (Full boot time is about 8 seconds, roughly 3 times faster than the current HW running in Extended BASIC. ) (Clarification: The BBS is XB/assembly hybrid but all of the core file IO, rs232, and screen display support is done via assembly for maximum speed) 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+9640News Posted September 25, 2019 Share Posted September 25, 2019 Tim, Is heatwave running under Abasic now? Or was that just a test? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted September 25, 2019 Author Share Posted September 25, 2019 Hi Beery, For now I am just playing* with the assembly code in an attempt to better learn and understand some MDOS mysteries. Getting back into some programming has brought up thoughts of whether or not to migrate HW to ABASIC, and whether or not to change my mind about retiring the system this year. I would say it is too early for me to make any decisions and I'll just play by ear. (*My programming time is limited to at most one day a week due to job demands and the changes I'm making to further improve my health, like more cardio, etc.) 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted October 12, 2019 Author Share Posted October 12, 2019 Does anyone use Myarc Advanced BASIC these days? I found and fixed two bugs this past week: 1. When used inside a program, the RUN command generated a "LINE NOT FOUND" if a line number wasn't provided. For programs that re-run themselves to reset, this was a nasty little bug. The line number table was being tested incorrectly during run-time mode (it works fine in immediate mode). Fix in 168.RTCMDS 2. If a program was auto-loaded from device.LOAD or via the OS command line, the CTRL-C breakpoint pointer was never set. (ctrl-c is used in place of FCTN-4 to halt a program). Modified the startup routine to always set the pointer. Fix in 164.cmdint56n. (I am not clear on why CTRL-C was used as it is periodically used in programs for input, which in turn now halts the program; was it for MDOS task convention, simplicity, or some other reason?) 3. Changed the internal name from "Myarc Advanced BASIC" to "Geneve BASIC". Version 4.06. I have a few more bugs and annoyances that I am trying to hunt down as I play with the BBS in this environment. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+chue Posted October 12, 2019 Share Posted October 12, 2019 Just curious, do you have source code for MA BASIC? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted October 12, 2019 Author Share Posted October 12, 2019 Yes, I do, and I believe that version 4.04 source is available on the WHT ftp site and/or the Geneve Yahoo download area. (The interpreter is a bit finicky. For example, it kept telling me a subprogram was not found until I moved it to a different line number. Early suspicion is that the subprogram name search is looking pseudo-alphabetically and gets tripped up when names are out of order. ) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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