16 Feb
2000
16 Feb
'00
5:27 a.m.
Just exactly why would you recommend a TINY BASIC as opposed to a full-up
interpreter? Most SBC's support huge amounts of RAM, far in excess of what
the basic interpreter should require.
My earliest Intel SBC's have room for 4 24-pin EPROMs, each of which can
hold 4K, and, if you use a jumpering arrangement derived from the schematic
rather than from the manual, you can use the 8K parts from MOT. That gives
you 32KB. Isn't that enough to support a customized version of the BASIC
interpreter in addition to the required driver code? You do have to modify
the I/O hooks to fit into your SBC, but you'd have to do that anyway,
wouldn't you? There are some public-domain CP/M-compatible I/O handlers
which use some of the CP/M i/o calls. Naturally, it's a lot of work, but
you can do it, given you have the source code.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: CLASSICCMP(a)trailing-edge.com <CLASSICCMP(a)trailing-edge.com>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Wednesday, February 16, 2000 11:48 AM
Subject: RE: Source code for BASIC
from
Tim Shoppa
mentioned having some early MS source on AFC.
What exactly do you have, Tim?
I've got MBASIC 5.11 sources. This is relatively late in
MBASIC's life (about the time it was being ported to the 8086) but there
are comments in there referring back to 1975.
I've also got home-grown disassemblies of several other Microsoft products the late 1970's, though these are hardly
"official".
If someone's looking for a BASIC to run on their SBC, I think I'd go
with one of the Tiny BASIC's out there myself that comes with sources.
Oak.oakland.edu or another good old Simtel mirror would be a good place
to start a search.
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
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