Stevie v1.0 programming editor

[+retroclouds]

This is the first GA release of Stevie, a new 80 columns programming editor for the TI-99/4a. 
Some of you may have been following the Stevie development thread. For those that haven't, here are some key facts:

 

• 32 kilobytes cartridge rom
• Written in TMS9900 assembly language
• Requires F18A VDP
• Requires 1MB SAMS memory card
• Only uses level 3 file I/O for better compatibility with the various storage devices out there (tested with HRD4000B ram disk, TIPI, IDE DSR card and TI disk controller)
   

Some of the main features:

• It's fast
• 80 columns, 30 rows mode
• Edit up to 10.200 lines of text with maximum length of 80 characters each. That should be a first on the TI-99-4a.
• 10 color schemes
• "Hardware" cursor (uses sprite as cursor (that is something currently only possible on the F18A VDP)
• "Fastmode" option. Possibility to bypass VDP memory when loading files from a device with a supported DSR (ROS, IDE, ...)
• Help built-in (at least for the keyboard shortcuts)   
• Indicator for alpha lock up/down

There have been 2 public betas and Vorticon has been helping me with testing the alpha releases.
So I think that for a first GA release it is quite stable. Nonetheless, please make sure you always have backups of the files you edit with Stevie.

Sorry, there's no search and replace option in this release.

 

If you want to try out Stevie, but do not have an F18A equipped TI-99/4A or a SAMS 1MB expansion card, you can give it a spin in the js99er emulator (Classic99 and MAME are currently unsupported)

 

Big thanks to vorticon for helping me with testing the alpha releases. His feedback was very valuable and it is very much appreciated.

 

Still have a lot of ideas with things I want to accomplish, but this will have to do for now. 

I've been working for almost 3 years programming Stevie, and it is now time to take a break and move on to new things.
That being said, I will look into bug fixes. Please report bugs to the Stevie development thread with a description of what happened and a screenshot if possible.

 

Have fun!

retroclouds

 

 

 

2021-02-06 Stevie v1.0

stevie.bin

Edited February 6 by retroclouds
Screenshots added

[fabrice montupet]

Great work!

I am impatient to see a V9938/V9958 implementation.

[Vorticon]

Outstanding work! This is going to be put to very good use.

[+Airshack]

Another killer-app for the SAMs card.

[Vorticon]

Today I officially put Stevie to real use, loading a 20K file list downloaded from the Hidden Reef BBS. Very smooth operation. Took 9 seconds to load the entire file which is quite impressive. There is currently no other editor which can load such large files.

I stumbled a little bit trying to print the file to my local printer as there was no obvious command to do so, but then remembered that PrEditor uses the Save command for that function, and it worked similarly with Stevie, just replacing the filename with PIO (or in my case PIO/2).

 

 

[+Airshack]

Just tried this out for the first time as something to look at the Tombstone City code. Extremely nice and in 80-columns. Thank you!

[+retroclouds]

1 hour ago, Airshack said:

Just tried this out for the first time as something to look at the Tombstone City code. Extremely nice and in 80-columns. Thank you!

 

Thanks! Happy to see Stevie getting some actual use. 👍

 

For what it is worth, this week I started work on v1.1

The first step is to refactor code so that I have more free space in bank 1 where most of the editor code resides.

 

I’m working on some user requests and plan to add some of the things that didn’t make it in v1.0

The version v1.0 will remain the most stable version for quite some time.

But I do plan to release minor releases for trying out things.

 

BTW thanks to @Asmusr we now have Stevie 1.0 bundled in the Apps section of the js99er emulator.

So if you want to give it a quick spin, that’s the place to look for.

[twoodland]

Wow! This is awesome! Thank you so much @retroclouds

[gferluga]

Impressive...