ideas for a BASIC compiler

In message , Stef writes

At least one in each drive (floppy, hard disk, CD-Rom,) one in the keyboard, one in the mouse, one in the graphics card, probably one handling the networking, one in the monitor....

Not to mention the one in my main desk top machine.. a Sinclar Spectrum :-)

I know a couple of people still using Z80 based systems, namely Amstrad PCWs. They may be getting long in the tooth but if all you want to do is write it's amazing how much more productive you are when you take away considerations such as "What font do I want that in?"

Actually I quite want one myself (primarily for use as a dumb terminal) but I'm waiting to find a good 8512.

A Spectrum is no good for office use! We all know the Commodore 64 is much better. ;-)

In message , Stef writes

:-)))))

The 8-bitters are probably in the keyboard and mouse only. Other abovementioned stuff is ether brainless or uses stronger CPUs. Ah, one more 8-bitter: the 8042 embedded in the chipset.

BTW the 16K ROM BASIC of the original Sinclair Spectrum-48 is a real masterpiece of the assembly programming. One can see the style of the true artist. The TRDOS and BASIC-128k are just crap compared to that.

Vladimir Vassilevsky DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

I used to have a C compiler for my Spectrum made by Hitec - is that the same people that make modern embedded C compilers? (I also had Forth, APL, and the amazingly slow "Snail Logo" for my speccy.)

The Basic ROM of the Spectrum is impressive (I've got the book "the Complete Spectrum Rom Disassembly" somewhere). But it's not nearly as impressive as the ROMs on Acorn's BBC Micros. They have got things like multiplication tables overlapping with character code tables or even executable code to squeeze out a few extra bytes. It also had an operating system that was *way* ahead of anything else in the small microcomputer market in terms of its flexibility and expandability (the first versions had only tape recorders for storage - yet the system was designed for plug-in enhancements with disk and network file systems).

In message , Vladimir Vassilevsky writes

But all embedded systems.

Completely agree... I had a modified ROM on my Spectrum

Mostly I was impressed with the subroutine which reads the data from the tape recorder. The ancient programmers did a beautiful work.

Some softwares used to XOR their code with ROM when loading for the obscurity and the copy protection reasons. So any modification to the standard (c)1982 ROM was a potential compatibility problem.

Vladimir Vassilevsky DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

In message , Vladimir Vassilevsky writes

I had the standard ROM, a modified ROM and a bank of RAM all switchable

Commodore 128.

In CP/M mode.

:)

This one?

Probably you are the first person typing on a keyboard with a dual AMD 5.6 Ghz, instead of one equipped with an 8 bit micro.

You can type so much faster ;-)

Groetjes Albert

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