Bill R Sullivan Posted June 25, 2021 Share Posted June 25, 2021 (edited) Can anyone tell me how to load a CHARA1 file with true lower case characters? As I have lots of CHARA(X) files I would like to try out, as I have some spare time (for just a little while, so please hurry). Edited June 25, 2021 by Bill R Sullivan Added important comment Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ti99iuc Posted June 25, 2021 Share Posted June 25, 2021 Do not know it this article can help: https://www.ti99iuc.it/web/sfoglia/?cid=221&sub=sfogliabile/Vol06n05-1989/#book/31 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill R Sullivan Posted June 25, 2021 Author Share Posted June 25, 2021 20 minutes ago, ti99iuc said: Do not know it this article can help: https://www.ti99iuc.it/web/sfoglia/?cid=221&sub=sfogliabile/Vol06n05-1989/#book/31 Thanks, for the quick reply, and I will check it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill R Sullivan Posted June 25, 2021 Author Share Posted June 25, 2021 37 minutes ago, ti99iuc said: Do not know it this article can help: https://www.ti99iuc.it/web/sfoglia/?cid=221&sub=sfogliabile/Vol06n05-1989/#book/31 Unfortunately this article only has the first half of the program, and the second half is in the following month's issue that I don't have access to, as it is already packed up and in the garage. I still have the 1997-1999 combined issues only. I also remember trying to down load the MP pdf files from WHTECH, but was unsuccessful (lots of internet problems at the time), so if you can provide the second half also, it will be gratefully appreciated, even though it will take me a long time to actually create the complete program. Thanks again for your quick help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted June 25, 2021 Share Posted June 25, 2021 http://ftp.whtech.com/magazines/micropendium/mp8907.pdf and it looks like it's continued again into http://ftp.whtech.com/magazines/micropendium/mp8908.pdf 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted June 25, 2021 Share Posted June 25, 2021 It's just a PROGRAM image file, so you use the LOAD opcode to the correct VDP address and you're done. I only have one example of a CHARA1 file, and it starts with character 0 (so you'd load it right at the pattern table base), but I thought in the back of my mind that I've seen others that start with space (so character 32, so start at pattern table + >100), and some start up at character 96 for /just/ the lowercase (so pattern table + >300). There's no header of any sort to tell you in advance, I usually just look for the exclamation mark (since it's easy to pick out), or decode the first character to graph paper to see what it is. This code loads DSK1.CHARA1 as described above then returns, so you can run it from Editor/Assembler and see the results in the EA menu * LOAD DSK1.CHARA1 TO >800 * ASSUMES EA VDP SETUP * ASSUMES CHARA1 STARTS WITH CHARACTER 0 * DOES NOT CHECK FOR ERRORS * BASED ON EA EXAMPLE SECTION 18.3 DEF START REF DSRLNK,VMBW,KSCAN PAB EQU >1000 PNTR EQU >8356 DEST EQU >0800 KEYM EQU >8374 STATUS EQU >837C * THIS IS THE PAB ITSELF * LOAD,DEST,NA,MAX SIZE,NAME LENGTH PDATA DATA >0500,DEST,>0000,>0400,>000B TEXT 'DSK1.CHARA1' EVEN * SOMETHING TO SAY TXT TEXT 'This is just something to say' EVEN * FIRST, COPY THE PAB INTO VDP RAM START LI R0,PAB LI R1,PDATA LI R2,21 BLWP @VMBW LI R6,PAB+9 POINTER TO NAME LENGTH BYTE MOV R6,@PNTR THIS IS WHERE THE DSRLNK LOOKS BLWP @DSRLNK DO THE OPERATION DATA 8 DEVICE, NOT SUBPROGRAM * DISPLAY A LINE OF TEXT TO SEE RESULT LI R0,320 10 ROWS DOWN LI R1,TXT LI R2,29 BLWP @VMBW ADD YOUR OWN ERROR HANDLING... * WAIT FOR KEY SO YOU CAN SEE IT... LI R0,>0500 MOVB R0,@KEYM LP BLWP @KSCAN MOVB @STATUS,R0 ANDI R0,>2000 CHECK STATUS BIT JEQ LP CLR @STATUS SO EA DOESN'T COMPLAIN B *R11 END 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill R Sullivan Posted June 26, 2021 Author Share Posted June 26, 2021 6 hours ago, arcadeshopper said: http://ftp.whtech.com/magazines/micropendium/mp8907.pdf and it looks like it's continued again into http://ftp.whtech.com/magazines/micropendium/mp8908.pdf Thanks Greg. Hopefully I'll have more success downloading from WHTECH this time around than I did the previous time, back when we were having lots of Internet problems with our provider. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill R Sullivan Posted June 26, 2021 Author Share Posted June 26, 2021 4 hours ago, Tursi said: It's just a PROGRAM image file, so you use the LOAD opcode to the correct VDP address and you're done. I only have one example of a CHARA1 file, and it starts with character 0 (so you'd load it right at the pattern table base), but I thought in the back of my mind that I've seen others that start with space (so character 32, so start at pattern table + >100), and some start up at character 96 for /just/ the lowercase (so pattern table + >300). There's no header of any sort to tell you in advance, I usually just look for the exclamation mark (since it's easy to pick out), or decode the first character to graph paper to see what it is. This code loads DSK1.CHARA1 as described above then returns, so you can run it from Editor/Assembler and see the results in the EA menu * LOAD DSK1.CHARA1 TO >800 * ASSUMES EA VDP SETUP * ASSUMES CHARA1 STARTS WITH CHARACTER 0 * DOES NOT CHECK FOR ERRORS * BASED ON EA EXAMPLE SECTION 18.3 DEF START REF DSRLNK,VMBW,KSCAN PAB EQU >1000 PNTR EQU >8356 DEST EQU >0800 KEYM EQU >8374 STATUS EQU >837C * THIS IS THE PAB ITSELF * LOAD,DEST,NA,MAX SIZE,NAME LENGTH PDATA DATA >0500,DEST,>0000,>0400,>000B TEXT 'DSK1.CHARA1' EVEN * SOMETHING TO SAY TXT TEXT 'This is just something to say' EVEN * FIRST, COPY THE PAB INTO VDP RAM START LI R0,PAB LI R1,PDATA LI R2,21 BLWP @VMBW LI R6,PAB+9 POINTER TO NAME LENGTH BYTE MOV R6,@PNTR THIS IS WHERE THE DSRLNK LOOKS BLWP @DSRLNK DO THE OPERATION DATA 8 DEVICE, NOT SUBPROGRAM * DISPLAY A LINE OF TEXT TO SEE RESULT LI R0,320 10 ROWS DOWN LI R1,TXT LI R2,29 BLWP @VMBW ADD YOUR OWN ERROR HANDLING... * WAIT FOR KEY SO YOU CAN SEE IT... LI R0,>0500 MOVB R0,@KEYM LP BLWP @KSCAN MOVB @STATUS,R0 ANDI R0,>2000 CHECK STATUS BIT JEQ LP CLR @STATUS SO EA DOESN'T COMPLAIN B *R11 END Thanks Mike. I just wish the process was simpler for us old coots. I guess my process of wanting to try out many CHARA(X) files will really take much longer time than I can spare until after our move is completed. It's something that can wait any way. I do appreciate everyone who has tried to be helpful. I just think about all the times I've loaded programs that automatically load a CHARA1 file if it's on DSK1; like, 4ADOS (COMMAND DOS), and JJ's BOOT MENU programs, and a few others. Oh well, I at least know what it will take, once I have the time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jedimatt42 Posted June 26, 2021 Share Posted June 26, 2021 Couldn't they be tried out the old fashioned way? 1. Put it on the disk with tiwriter's editor files. 2. Load a text file in tiwriter, and edit it. *. Repeat step 1 with the next CHARA1 to try... I think fbForth has a word to load/reload them. That'd be fairly expediant. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Lee Stewart Posted June 26, 2021 Share Posted June 26, 2021 3 hours ago, jedimatt42 said: I think fbForth has a word to load/reload them. That'd be fairly expedient. USEFFL (USE Font FiLe) sets fbForth 2.0 up to load a font file and FNT actually loads it. The font file is expected to start with the pattern for ASCII 0 rather than the 6 program-loading bytes at the beginning of the usual TI Writer font files (like CHARA1). If you want to load CHARA1 in fbForth 2.0, FONTED can strip those 6 bytes and save the change as a new font file. Font files can be 1 KiB (ASCII 0 – 127) or 2 KiB (ASCII 0 – 255). ...lee 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jedimatt42 Posted June 26, 2021 Share Posted June 26, 2021 Oh, for some reason that TI-Writer CHARA1 format astonishes me... The optimal location to load it is 3 words early in the VDP buffer. Then, if interpretted like EA5, the header indicates a single file, to load at 0x0800, and nearly 2k (almost an entire set of character definitions) but the file is only about 1k (7 bit ascii sufficient) 00 00 08 00 07 fa I don't know if this is an original ti-writer file, or if someone truncated it to take advantage of the inner details of LOAD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill R Sullivan Posted June 26, 2021 Author Share Posted June 26, 2021 9 hours ago, jedimatt42 said: Couldn't they be tried out the old fashioned way? 1. Put it on the disk with tiwriter's editor files. 2. Load a text file in tiwriter, and edit it. *. Repeat step 1 with the next CHARA1 to try... I think fbForth has a word to load/reload them. That'd be fairly expediant. Yes, this would seem like a much easier method to do what I want to do, but maybe Lee has an even better solution, so I'll be able to create my own CHARA1 files. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill R Sullivan Posted June 26, 2021 Author Share Posted June 26, 2021 5 hours ago, Lee Stewart said: USEFFL (USE Font FiLe) sets fbForth 2.0 up to load a font file and FNT actually loads it. The font file is expected to start with the pattern for ASCII 0 rather than the 6 program-loading bytes at the beginning of the usual TI Writer font files (like CHARA1). If you want to load CHARA1 in fbForth 2.0, FONTED can strip those 6 bytes and save the change as a new font file. Font files can be 1 KiB (ASCII 0 – 127) or 2 KiB (ASCII 0 – 255). ...lee Just as I thought, if fbForth is used, then fonted can be used to fix the bad headers of existing CHARA1 files, until I'm ready to create my own CHARA1 files. My thanks to all you very helpful TI'ers on AtariAge. No wonder I have such a hard time staying away when I'm suppose to be "packing" my TI hobby stuff to move or ship! ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill R Sullivan Posted June 26, 2021 Author Share Posted June 26, 2021 1 hour ago, jedimatt42 said: Oh, for some reason that TI-Writer CHARA1 format astonishes me... The optimal location to load it is 3 words early in the VDP buffer. Then, if interpretted like EA5, the header indicates a single file, to load at 0x0800, and nearly 2k (almost an entire set of character definitions) but the file is only about 1k (7 bit ascii sufficient) 00 00 08 00 07 fa I don't know if this is an original ti-writer file, or if someone truncated it to take advantage of the inner details of LOAD. Yes, the CHARA1 file header has become an obvious flaw to deal with for those of us just now learning about it. Thanks for your assistance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+TheBF Posted June 27, 2021 Share Posted June 27, 2021 Where does one find these CHARA(X) fonts. I would enjoy perusing them. I have a loader saver utility for Camel99 as well. Currently set for 1K files but it's just 1 parameter change to make it 2K. \ Use SAVE-FILE LOAD-FILE for fast FONT LOADING \ Usage: S" DSK3.FONT0000" SAVE-FONT \ S" DSK3.FONT0000" LOAD-FONT \ pdt size mode : SAVE-FONT ( file$ len --) 800 400 W/O100 SAVE-FILE ; : LOAD-FONT ( file$ len --) 800 400 R/O100 LOAD-FILE ; 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FarmerPotato Posted June 27, 2021 Share Posted June 27, 2021 15 hours ago, TheBF said: Where does one find these CHARA(X) fonts. I would enjoy perusing them. I have a loader saver utility for Camel99 as well. Currently set for 1K files but it's just 1 parameter change to make it 2K. \ Use SAVE-FILE LOAD-FILE for fast FONT LOADING \ Usage: S" DSK3.FONT0000" SAVE-FONT \ S" DSK3.FONT0000" LOAD-FONT \ pdt size mode : SAVE-FONT ( file$ len --) 800 400 W/O100 SAVE-FILE ; : LOAD-FONT ( file$ len --) 800 400 R/O100 LOAD-FILE ; There are 270+ in @sometimes99er's font collection 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+TheBF Posted June 27, 2021 Share Posted June 27, 2021 1 hour ago, FarmerPotato said: There are 270+ in @sometimes99er's font collection That is an excellent resource. I thought there might be something in TI-99 binary format. I can use Magellan to extract these but I still need to do some significant text file massaging to get it into a Forth source format. I guess I need to write some code to allow Forth to swallow what Magellan gives me directly. Edit: I just saw that magellan can output binary data. DOH! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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