3 Oct
2001
3 Oct
'01
8:56 a.m.
gwynp(a)artware.qc.ca wrote:
On 30-Sep-2001 Tony Duell wrote:
Not at all. Many years ago I developed a tiny basic for a machine for
the very purpose of allowing an engineer to write small test programs
and "scope loops", short sequences of operations used to make scoping of
signals possible. Its a great tools for that.
As a fun project at the moment I am reimplementing tiny BASIC on the pc
(yes I'm sure I could find one on the web but...) Looks like it will
need about 2kb (it's 1800 bytes right now but missing a couple of features)
I have little hope but I will try and see if I can get it incorporated
into the BIOS my employer develops.
-- HBP
There was one time I was glad I had a true IBM
PC/XT and not a clone. I
needed ROM BASIC. The reason was, my floppy controller had suffered a
hardward failure. The machine managed to give up trying to boot from
floppies, and fell into ROM BASIC. Where I could use OUT commands to
send values to the floppy controller ports, and I could look at signals
on the floppy controller card with a logic probe. Took me about 5 minutes
to find the dead 74LS273 latch that was holding the 8272 in the reset
state.
If I'd not had BASIC in ROM, I'd have had a long day ahead of me trying
to debug that machine...
You, sir, are, and I mean this in the best possible way, INSANE. I am in
awe.