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SAMS and TI Extented Basic


fabrice montupet

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The best solution is a paged 8K at >4000 to >5FFF memory, so this presents a single problem loading and saving SAMS.

But as 4K of it would be used for memory map of SAMS the other 4K could be used for swapping pages when something complicated is needed.

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From the description of XB packer, it looks like XB programs that load assembly routines will likely overwrite the XBP loader which won't fit my purposes, although it does demonstrate very interesting capabilities.

Perhaps I could emulate some of its capabilities using a custom loader, but I need to understand how it does what it does. What are the elements that need to be saved for a program currently residing in the 24K upper memory to be preserved and later restored? I suppose I could simply copy the entire VDP and the 24K RAM to the SAMS then restore them at a later time and still have plenty of space in the SAMS for another XB program and its VDP image, but that would a pure brute force method....

 

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1 hour ago, Vorticon said:

From the description of XB packer, it looks like XB programs that load assembly routines will likely overwrite the XBP loader which won't fit my purposes, although it does demonstrate very interesting capabilities.

Perhaps I could emulate some of its capabilities using a custom loader, but I need to understand how it does what it does. What are the elements that need to be saved for a program currently residing in the 24K upper memory to be preserved and later restored? I suppose I could simply copy the entire VDP and the 24K RAM to the SAMS then restore them at a later time and still have plenty of space in the SAMS for another XB program and its VDP image, but that would a pure brute force method....

 

 

You only have to copy the 16K VDP RAM and scratchpad memory to SAMS, the 24K RAM is already there in SAMS. It's just a matter of switching the proper SAMS pages.

Copying 16KB VDP RAM is fast. In the latest Stevie revision I have up to 5 TI Basic sessions and can switch between them in no time. There's nothing wrong with brute force if it's fast.?

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  • 9 months later...
On 1/8/2022 at 10:17 AM, InsaneMultitasker said:

I have the assembly source code to Brad's XB Packer somewhere in my archives.   If there is a development interest, @fabrice montupet or @senior_falcon, I will attempt to locate the disk image and review any notes that I have concerning its distribution.

Did you get a positive response? We'd love to see this source

 

Greg

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1 hour ago, arcadeshopper said:

Did you get a positive response? We'd love to see this source

 

Greg

OK. See attached disk image, PC99 format, with source to XB Packer v1.2A. The one thing I recall is that the AMS 128/256K cards were prevalent at the time, so I don't know if Brad (or anyone else for that matter) tested with higher capacity SAMS. 

 

I would ask that if anyone updates this utility, the corresponding updated source should be included in any distribution package(s).

XBPacker AMS SAMS 12 SourcePC99.DSK

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On 1/8/2022 at 11:05 AM, retroclouds said:

 

That is indeed an issue, the places I can think of:

1. Keep one SAMS page always mapped and store the mappings there, obviously that reduces the overall availability.

2. Store the pages mapped in scratchpad memory (that's an issue when doing XB, not so if you are running a standalone assembly language program, e.g. cartridge)

3. Use VDP memory (as you said)

4. Run FG99 cartridge in advanced mode and store the mappings there, aka. same as when storing in a supercart

5. In the DSR space if there's memory there, e.g. when using RAMDISK, ROS

 

You can use XB 24K program space in XB by changing that location so when program sets up pages on intialization.

Example line 100 ! REM STATEMENT 44,45,66,67,68,69,70
As REM is ignored you can change this line in XB program and use it as your page mapper.

An XB like can have 163 tokens so if 3 digit number with comma or space you could have 40 pages mapped from 000 to 999 pages of SAMS in decimal.

Or use 100 ! >44>45>66>67>68>69>70... 

This would allow > to be a seperator and Hex would allow 53 pages mapped from >00 to >FF of SAMS in Hex.

Anyway the mapper locations would be in RAM not in VDP.

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7 hours ago, InsaneMultitasker said:

OK. See attached disk image, PC99 format, with source to XB Packer v1.2A. The one thing I recall is that the AMS 128/256K cards were prevalent at the time, so I don't know if Brad (or anyone else for that matter) tested with higher capacity SAMS. 

 

I would ask that if anyone updates this utility, the corresponding updated source should be included in any distribution package(s).

XBPacker AMS SAMS 12 SourcePC99.DSK 254.14 kB · 6 downloads

Awesome thank you. What happened to Brad Snyder btw?  

 

looking at the code it only supports 128 or 256 and even in classic99 with its h00ge sams it only recognizes 256 of it

Edited by arcadeshopper
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On 11/7/2022 at 10:10 PM, arcadeshopper said:

Awesome thank you. What happened to Brad Snyder btw?  

 

looking at the code it only supports 128 or 256 and even in classic99 with its h00ge sams it only recognizes 256 of it

Sorry, I have no recollection of when Brad exited the scene. It's been a while. 

 

The good news is if the detection things there is a 256K, you can still use/load up to 10 programs.  :)   I don't know if anyone has tried the released package to see if it works?

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2 hours ago, InsaneMultitasker said:

Sorry, I have no recollection of when Brad exited the scene. It's been a while. 

 

The good news is if the detection things there is a 256K, you can still use/load up to 10 programs.  :)   I don't know if anyone has tried the released package to see if it works?

Ok well exited the scene is better than passed away :)    

 

The disk posted earlier has the release on it and it works great :)

 

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