hp2114 basic

Tim Riker wrote: Files with the "ABS" extension are compiled files. I don't have the ABS documentation in front of me but the format is not very complex. You can download the cross compiler at: http://oscar.taurus.com/~jeff/2100/emulator/hpasm.c (saves files in ABS format) and figure out exactly what the format is. The real trick is getting the file loaded into the HP1000. Depending on which I/O cards and loader ROMS you have, you can load the data either serially or in parallel. When I first started playing with the 1000's I built a Paper Tape Emulator and used it for loading files including HPBASIC. This involved building a parallel interface between my PC and the 1000. It worked OK but, I found it was really clumbsy. So, I went the serial route. To load files serially I wrote a perl script to parse the ABS file and send it as HEX-ASCII to a serial I/O card in the 1000. Since my 1000 already had a loader ROM for a serial data terminal, I didn't have to to do anything on the HP1000 side. If you don't have the serial ROM, you can write a serial I/O routine and toggle it in whenever you want to load the file. If you wanna build hardware, go the parallel route. If you wanna build software, go the serial route. Either way works. SO... Here's an update on my latest tinkerings with the 1000's. How bout a HPIB hard drive that can boot a HP1000 and/or a Z80 STD BUS system and share files between them. That's right, two completely different computers sharing the same HD. Obviously the binaries can't be shared but they can use the same file system and share non-binary files. When completed, I should be able to write a BASIC program on the Z80 system, save it to disk in ASCII format, boot the HP1000 from the same disk, load and run the program... Hmmm... Now If I just had a GPIB card for my linux box ;-) Now that's what I call a DUAL BOOT system! See Yas, SteveRob