I have my Imsai 8080 fully running and communicating with my Mac Pro as a
dumb terminal. Many thanks to this group for helpful pushing along the way.
I have also modified SCS1, the Imsai monitor program, to my liking and have
it burned into PROM. Since I do not yet have a floppy system for this
antique, I wrote an Intel hex format loader and just send the hex files over
the serial line to load them.
Life is good.
What I am looking for now is the 8080 asm source code to a good 8K basic
interpreter. I found one called TinyBasic but it was so concerned with
space the author built in a ton of self-modifying code and trying to follow
the logic is like untying a plate of spaghetti. I have another one called
BASIC85 which is better but assumes a VIO memory-addressable video system.
If necessary I will take this one apart and make it work. I hear a lot
about Imsai having an 8K basic, and I can find the manuals, but I can?t seem
to locate the actual 8080 source.
Anyone out there know of or have the asm source code to a basic interpreter
or know what became of the Imsai Basic8K?
I have an itty-bitty (3K) integer basic for the 8080 which I wrote way back in
the 70's. You can get it up and running pretty easily and it doesn't depend on
any special I/O ... Source is included on my Altair disks, which you can
access
under my simulator (you can also run the BASIC to try it out if you like).
I have a number of other 8080 code bits which you might find useful - editor,
assembler, disassembler, debugger, games etc. much of which is also available
in my Altair disks.
Regards,
Dave
--
dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools:
www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html
Dave,
I did purchase your kit and am using your asm85 (I do have a couple of
questions but it can wait), many thanks for having these available.
Most of the BASIC source I have found is either poorly written or so tightly
wound into a specific hardware implementation that it isn't really usable.
I did recently find something called BASIC-5.ASM, written by a Kevin Jordon
and modified by a Jeff Zurkow. It looks to be the Processor Tech 5K BASIC
adapted for CPM. It looks like I can pretty easily stub the CPM calls and
replace them with the IO routines I have created.
For anyone interested or anyone who has an IMSAI 8080 with a basic rs232 IO
system, I have modified SCS1 (the Imsai monitor) to be a bit more robust as
a debugger and to include an Intel HEX loader and Cromemco ByteSaverII prom
programming system. I also have the BASIC5K source which appears to be
pretty clean and well documented. I haven't found a lick of self-modifing
code in it!
I am more than happy to make these sources available.
Jeff Erwin