Geneve FORTH

[GDMike]

Ok. I'm convinced my computer is good BUT FORTH+ has major issues.

So I will move to TI FORTH for geneve and enjoy less headaches.

[+TheBF]

From what I understand of Forth+, took a harder path by using binary overlays. They are faster to load but you can't repair them because I don't think you have the source code.

In the heyday of Forth systems Forth Inc. USA turned the problem around and made the compiler waaay faster so you could compile text from blocks almost instantly.

 

These methods use hashed look-up in the dictionary search to speed that up by about 8X.

This is seldom seen in non-commercial Forth systems with the exception of F83 for DOS (Laxen & Perry)

 

I am working on shoe-horning this idea into Camel99 Forth at which point it will have pretty much left the land of the Camel.   

 

"Hmm... the Forth strong is in this one" 

 

[+9640News]

On 4/1/2021 at 9:20 AM, GDMike said:

Yes, but I can't remember which ver.

The mouse actually works just fine, I'm having problems with my computer in general OR I'm having trouble with FORTH+. But I suspect it to be a ram issue. Because forth runs. But once I make a mistake, it crashes.but in reality, I think most forths do that OR can do that.

I know factually that I'm dropping bits at boot up into MDOS and it doesn't always show, but definitely shows up more frequently when using forth and high resolution, or playing with graphics and its functions. But it's not limited to Forth.

Text 80 mode seems stable.

I could still have a bad video chip?

Bad ram? I seem ok using a disk manager, but what constraints does that have on the system I don't know?

I haven't gotten into a basic yet I'd like to maybe possibly put some things to the test if it's possible in a basic I don't know.

I need to differentiate the problem and isolate.  it's either in forth or it's not.

But I do know that when I got into graphics mode the first couple days I tried it with the mouse everything was perfect except again I was dropping bits just like this screenshot but in Forth it was scattered like this, it was only the top part of the screen and a CLS never cleared it. Eventually it led to a lockup.

I'll probably ask @Shift838to take a look at the card and test it again for me to confirm things unless he has software I can run.

@Shift838 if you are listening...

 

Mike,

 

When you boot, are you still occasionally getting this display?

 

This issue suggest a hardware problem.  That mouse driver and test program across all video modes I provided and suggested you run would go a long way to confirm one way or the other.  I am about 99% certain the above display is not a text mode screen, rather a graphics mode screen.  As such, if you had a bad VRAM chip/connection/etc., you might not visually see the issue in text modes, but it may be present especially as you move things through video buffers potentially corrupting subsequent disk writes.

 

To those of us that have used the Geneve for 30+ YEARS, please heed our advice and run the program with the mouse driver loaded. It uses all the text and video modes. If you get a weird display on one of the video modes, then you can work on solving that issue and then everything else may work if you haven't already corrupted disks, etc.

 

Beery

 

[Bill R Sullivan]

13 hours ago, GDMike said:

Update .. FORTH+ is at it again. Now at boot-up I'm getting the error, MGRACTIVATE? This comes on line 19 of the BOOT file. MMS reports this, and its job is to set the MMS active.

The line in file "BOOT"  looks like this:

MGRACTIVATE  1 WARNING

And then things like changing libraries, editing etc..do not work.

 

I even went back to backups from a couple months back for good configuration forth+ and they all report this error. BTW MMS reports ver 1.

 

I'm not sure at this point why I was good for two solid days,(the only days lately that I've done anything), and then this since two days ago when I first got the error.

I'm able to run the TI forth for geneve just fine along with ABasic,  GPL games, etc .

Not sure if it's hardware or not but I did order new ram since it's cheap and I did change out the 32k upgrade chips and that didn't make any difference at all.

If anyone knows where the memtest is I'd like to download it and try it on my geneve.

Have a great night

 

 

I'm suppose to be packing up everything now, but I do look in occasionally to see if you've got a handle on Forth+ yet.  I believe that the biggest problem you have is your TI FDC.  Forth+ was designed for a minimum of DSDD, and prefers DSDD 80 track or hard disk controllers.  Everything you need to BOOT Forth+ successfully is on those diskettes.  Ask someone to loan you a DSDD 80 track FDC just to verify what I've said.  I've specified the DSDD 80 track FDC because I believe the 3.5" diskette is more likely to have survived all these years than the 5.25" diskette.

 

RetroBill (fdos)

 

P. S.  I've finally found a large envelope to mail those other documents to, and will do so as soon as I have an opportunity to sneak off to the post office.

Edited May 4, 2021 by Bill R Sullivan
added Post Script

[GDMike]

6 hours ago, Bill R Sullivan said:

I'm suppose to be packing up everything now, but I do look in occasionally to see if you've got a handle on Forth+ yet.  I believe that the biggest problem you have is your TI FDC.  Forth+ was designed for a minimum of DSDD, and prefers DSDD 80 track or hard disk controllers.  Everything you need to BOOT Forth+ successfully is on those diskettes.  Ask someone to loan you a DSDD 80 track FDC just to verify what I've said.  I've specified the DSDD 80 track FDC because I believe the 3.5" diskette is more likely to have survived all these years than the 5.25" diskette.

 

RetroBill (fdos)

 

P. S.  I've finally found a large envelope to mail those other documents to, and will do so as soon as I have an opportunity to sneak off to the post office.

Nice

[GDMike]

9 hours ago, Bill R Sullivan said:

I'm suppose to be packing up everything now, but I do look in occasionally to see if you've got a handle on Forth+ yet.  I believe that the biggest problem you have is your TI FDC.  Forth+ was designed for a minimum of DSDD, and prefers DSDD 80 track or hard disk controllers.  Everything you need to BOOT Forth+ successfully is on those diskettes.  Ask someone to loan you a DSDD 80 track FDC just to verify what I've said.  I've specified the DSDD 80 track FDC because I believe the 3.5" diskette is more likely to have survived all these years than the 5.25" diskette.

 

RetroBill (fdos)

 

P. S.  I've finally found a large envelope to mail those other documents to, and will do so as soon as I have an opportunity to sneak off to the post office.

I'm Sounding like a broken record.

I changed out the eprom today that I received. And booted up into MDOS 7.

Not seeing any errors. And, sorry to say, but FORTH+ booted up too. Just fine.

I remember going through this a few days ago and the first two days I had no issues and then it started going haywire so I'm just hanging on and we'll see what happens in a couple days if it still working or not. But right now to my surprise it booted with no issues into fourth plus.

I feel like I'm on a Merry-Go-Round.

And to answer Mr Berry's question am I getting the spots again no nothing I didn't see anything and I changed my battery also in my clock while I had this thing out changing the eprom.

 

Edited May 5, 2021 by GDMike

[+TheBF]

Could the eprom socket need some contact cleaner?

[GDMike]

13 minutes ago, TheBF said:

Could the eprom socket need some contact cleaner?

I think it was swapped out already a couple months ago.

But I'm just waiting for a couple days to go by before declaring good.

I've ruled out PEB socket though as I thought that might be the culprit back when ..

Let's give it time..I'll try using it, of course, over the week. 

In the meantime..oooh. let me pull a memory? 

 

Edited May 5, 2021 by GDMike

[GDMike]

Ok... I guess

[GDMike]

Oh, I misspelled Mr. Beery's name earlier I noticed. Not intentional. Phone spell check..

So, yeah. I'm getting normal screens.

[GDMike]

It's been a few hours and I've been in and out of F+ for a few hours now. Nothing crazy has happened all night.

Well, gotta sleep sometime.

Oops, my clock is off. I'll straighten that up.

Edited May 5, 2021 by GDMike

[GDMike]

That's better. Say goodnight, honk.. shutting down.

Edited May 5, 2021 by GDMike

[GDMike]

My first word creation. "SPIN" for FORTH+. I can get used to this, lol.

Looks great this morning. Everything is hunky dory. 

[Bill R Sullivan]

4 hours ago, GDMike said:

My first word creation. "SPIN" for FORTH+. I can get used to this, lol.

Looks great this morning. Everything is hunky dory. 

Well, it looks like something you did is allowing your AUTOEXEC file (the one you created) to execute correctly.  So once I mail the X4th99 documents that reference the dual libraries I was creating for Forth+, I can get back to preparing to move to an unknown location close by.

[GDMike]

It's like 3 days now and everything is working well. Used geneve all day yesterday. I'm hoping this stays the same.

Edited May 6, 2021 by GDMike

[Bill R Sullivan]

5 hours ago, GDMike said:

It's like 3 days now and everything is working well. Used geneve all day yesterday. I'm hoping this stays the same.

Like I said, you fixed something that removed or messed with your AUTOEXEC file, so as long as nothing happens to that file or messes up that file it should work.  BTW the X4th99 document is on it's way.  It was shipped simple first class, so no tracking number, but it should arrive Monday or Tuesday.  If not...........

[GDMike]

2 hours ago, Bill R Sullivan said:

Like I said, you fixed something that removed or messed with your AUTOEXEC file, so as long as nothing happens to that file or messes up that file it should work.  BTW the X4th99 document is on it's way.  It was shipped simple first class, so no tracking number, but it should arrive Monday or Tuesday.  If not...........

Any packages, usually mailed get a tracking number these days, especially first class mail. But I'll be on the lookout, it'll get here. Thank you for sending it. 

I changed out the eprom AND I quit trying to do higher graphics functions via call to the libraries. My Autoexec doesn't have anything in it. I mean, I had the MOUSE and MOUSF call but I took that out.

Edited May 6, 2021 by GDMike

[Bill R Sullivan]

2 hours ago, GDMike said:

Any packages, usually mailed get a tracking number these days, especially first class mail. But I'll be on the lookout, it'll get here. Thank you for sending it. 

I changed out the eprom AND I quit trying to do higher graphics functions via call to the libraries. My Autoexec doesn't have anything in it. I mean, I had the MOUSE and MOUSF call but I took that out.

It's not a package, it's just first class mail, so no tracking; Ist class mail $2.20.

[+TheBF]

On 5/5/2021 at 11:48 AM, GDMike said:

My first word creation. "SPIN" for FORTH+. I can get used to this, lol.

Looks great this morning. Everything is hunky dory. 

Nice to see it's all working now.  What your plans for this beast? 

 

I tried the same thing on my Camel Forth and it runs in about the same time.

Something like this?

: SPIN
     PAGE
     2 2 AT-XY
     ." Counting from 0 to 999"
     1000 0
     DO
       10 10 AT-XY  I 5 U.R
     LOOP
;

 

[GDMike]

Just created EXIST

A word called, -FIND is already resident,

It searches all libraries and if found kicks

Out a 1 for found, an address of location and a length of the word.(maybe not all in that order).

but I just added the logic table for an text output.

: EXIST -FIND ROT ROT DROP drop

   Dup 0 = if ." Not anywhere" else

    1 = if ." It exists!!" Then then

 

Excuse my lowercase..I always use my phone and it can't handle uppercase staying on repeatedly...

 

 

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by GDMike

[GDMike]

12 minutes ago, TheBF said:

Nice to see it's all working now.  What your plans for this beast? 

 

I tried the same thing on my Camel Forth and it runs in about the same time.

Something like this?

: SPIN
     PAGE
     2 2 AT-XY
     ." Counting from 0 to 999"
     1000 0
     DO
       10 10 AT-XY  I 5 U.R
     LOOP
;

 

So can I run that.?

Let's try.. nope AT-XY?

Edited May 7, 2021 by GDMike

[+TheBF]

Just now, GDMike said:

So can I run that.?

Let's try

Replace AT-XY  which is new standard Forth  with  GOTOXY  

 

 

[GDMike]

Ok. Gotcha..I use GXY..I shortened it a bit

 

[+TheBF]

2 minutes ago, GDMike said:

Ok. Gotcha..I use GXY..I shortened it a bit

 

Cool.   I should be able to make or find a FIGFORTH (Forth+ starts there) to ANS Forth "harness" as they call it so you could try stuff easier that was in standard Forth.

It won't be perfect cuz there were a lot of changes made since 30 years ago, but it means we could share some code snippets easier. 

It would probably all fit on one block.

 

[GDMike]

6 minutes ago, TheBF said:

Cool.   I should be able to make or find a FIGFORTH (Forth+ starts there) to ANS Forth "harness" as they call it so you could try stuff easier that was in standard Forth.

It won't be perfect cuz there were a lot of changes made since 30 years ago, but it means we could share some code snippets easier. 

It would probably all fit on one block.

 

I've just started going through this Forth+ manual, there are words but not much of an example for each. I may throw one or two at you to try to get an understanding.

I also need to learn where the vdp ram address starts and ends.

The reason I'm saying that is I tried the word VSBW.

In this way, decimal

42 100 VSBW ..uh .. now it's working...

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by GDMike