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Expanded Basic 3 - Resources


dhe

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I'm putting up this page to help anyone that might be interested in using XB3.

    I've combined a few things I found on Atariage, here and there.

 

Expanded Basic 3 was written by the accomplished TI Developer Winfried Winkler.

It was released via Asgard and actual product development and production was given over to OPA.

 

Ksarul - stated, he helped beta test for Winfried and that testing was done on a Geneve, so somewhere out there a Geneve compatible version exists.

I know Barry Boone also helped beta test, and there was code sharing that happened, while brain storming the best way to do things with in the software.

Barry specifically mentioned to me there was minor bug fixes in existing XB code and also, some routines that started out life in GPL ended up in 9900 Assembly Code to save space and increase speed.

 

These where produced in two version by OPA.

   The first batch utilitized OPA's existing POP Cartridge (another rare cartridge that everyone should have purchased)

   The second was a smaller sized POP Cartridge.

 

If anyone has any information on how best to utilize AMS memory via Expanded Basic 3, please share some code!

 

More to come tomorrow, hopefully!

 

 

Manual as found on Atariage:

Files as presented by Bob Carmany:

ExtendedBasic3.pdf XB3.dsk

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I have loaded the cart pretty regularly on my TI system with AMS memory. I've had good luck with some copies finding the AMS memory and configuring the system to use about 64K of it. I demonstrated this at the Chicago faire a few years ago. . .

 

What is curious though, is that all copies I've made have the same code base, but only some of them actually recognize AMS memory consistently.

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4 hours ago, Ksarul said:

I have loaded the cart pretty regularly on my TI system with AMS memory. I've had good luck with some copies finding the AMS memory and configuring the system to use about 64K of it. I demonstrated this at the Chicago faire a few years ago. . .

 

What is curious though, is that all copies I've made have the same code base, but only some of them actually recognize AMS memory consistently.

Hi @Ksarul,

 

how does xb3 indicate that it found sams memory?

 

Is it in the size command?

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Tursi, was kind enough to port the Gazoo version for me, here is what the version reports,

image.png.8a6f6444046fbfa92cc7561ba838da13.png

 

I tried both with AMS memory in Classic99 enabled and disabled, and received the same amount of memory available.

image.png.0a7b258ad7537b93e18889e2dec5ef5c.png

 

I bring this up, only since the the program was written early in the AMS life cycle, and probably not updated, but I vaguely remember Bob Carmany and Bruce Harrison working together on upgrading the AMS test program. One of the things that had be changed, if I recall correctly was the identification routine, as the original test program worked with the original 64 and 128 versions, but not the larger 512, later 1024..

 

But... For now, I'm happy, I've always liked this version above XB or SuperXB versions. Let me clear it with Tursi, and I will post the files he gave me, and give setup support if needed.

 

d.

 

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For Classic99 - Just follow the instructions in readme.txt. I modified the original zip Tursi sent me, to remove another experiment we were doing. I don't want to get two threads wrapped up in to one.

Since I have this running, if you have questions or problems with the zip, please let me know.

d.

 

xb3_only.7z

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Interesting, the manual scans that were provided on that thread are from MY copies. :) I know this due to some oil stains on one of them that came out in the scan process. I put them up on WHTech years ago.

 

I did test a couple years ago if my XB3 supercart would recognize my SAMS card, and it didn't. This is likely because either the cartridge lacks the AMS recognition capacity (it certainly isn't mentioned in the manuals) or it only recognizes the original Asgard cards, which had a slightly different architecture from SAMS.

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Yea... I have a couple of superams, I did a board run like 8 years ago.

I don't have an original AMS, so my guess is that is what EXB3 was/is coded to. (very poor English skillz here) ? .

For most of the files, I trolled this forum from messages passed.

The new thing (for me) is the ability to run EXB3 under Classic99, and hopefully soon the capability to run in MAME. ?

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I didn't determine whether Gazoo changed the original code or not, but the Gazoo version runs on the UberGROM, which means it's the standard write-to-ROM banking scheme.

 

I couldn't find enough information on the popcart to run the original ROMs, which would have been pretty cool. ;)

 

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10 hours ago, arcadeshopper said:

according to Gary it banks like the mb carts

There's more to it than just that though... the board has two 128KB EPROMs. To use them, I would need to know how the PALs split them up between ROM and GROM.

 

I put a couple of hours into it before just using what already worked. ;)

 

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