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523 lines
24 KiB
Plaintext
America Online
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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
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Tuesday, April 17, 1990 10:00 pm eastern time
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Topic: 8 Bit Programming / Russian Apple II
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Forum Leader: Dave Sugar (AFL Dyfet)
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AFL Dyfet Okay, I guess we are ready to get started here. Good evening and..
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AFL Dyfet welcome to the Apple II Development Forum. Tonight's topic is 8
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bit
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AFL Dyfet programming, and we will not be using protocol YET (watching
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Gibber :)...Feel
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AFL Dyfet free to bring your questions forward on this topic...
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Dave Lyons Apparently everybody is a P8 expert already.
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Matt DTS Or everyone thinks they are.
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A GibberFC <---- Uses P8 at night
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A GibberFC in the dark
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A GibberFC and washes his hands afterwards <grin>
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Dave Lyons Not that everyone is *one* P8 expert...I mean all separate ones.
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Matt DTS We could start with trivia about what *really* lies in memory from
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$3D6 through $3EF...
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Matt DTS ...and why programs (not naming any names, like COMMAND.COM) that
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write over them are breaking rules.
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AFA Gary J :)
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Dave Lyons Look out, it's a trick question--bytes never tell a lie.
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LL Lance Gee, Mr. Matt, tell us! :)
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Matt DTS Nah. :)
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AFA Gary J Hmmm. I thought there were more 8 bit programmers around (at
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least they
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AFA Gary J always complain about too much IIGS coverage :)
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AFL Dyfet I think we can go beyond past programming sins and on to more
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interesting
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AFL Dyfet topics, such as about what the Russian Apple is like, if Ron Lewin
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will indulge
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AFL Dyfet us :)...
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Micol Sys Well...
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Micol Sys for the benefit of the Apple people here, I would like to outline
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the
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Micol Sys differences between the Russian Apple II clone and the real
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thing.
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Micol Sys First of all... the current model is NOT an enhanced machine... no
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65C02
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Micol Sys or mousetext.
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Micol Sys Secondly, the ROMs it uses are NOT copies of Apple's ROMs...
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Micol Sys the ROMs were written virtually from scratch...
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Micol Sys they had to be, becuase the Pravetz uses special russian ASCII
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which uses all
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Micol Sys 8 bits, whereas the normal Apple II's ASCII ignores the high bit
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for most
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Micol Sys purposes.
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Micol Sys Applesoft, though...
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Micol Sys is BASICally (pun, pun) a copy of Microsoft's Applesoft used in
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Apple II and
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Avery R C Hey there.
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Micol Sys Laser... but is modified with some new commands.
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Micol Sys However, their version is not
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Micol Sys really able to use the russian ASCII, so that's why we're making a
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special
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Micol Sys version of Micol Advanced BASIC for the machine.
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Micol Sys They've also got some other really nice stuff... such as a network
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for the
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Micol Sys Apple II's that uses an IBM PC as the file server.
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Micol Sys If you want to develop software for thier Apple II compatibles,
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Micol Advanced
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Micol Sys BASIC/USSR is what you'll need to use to write your best
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program...
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Micol Sys because we take the headaches out of accessing their strange ASCII
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system...
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Micol Sys such as comparisons...
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Micol Sys becuase they're russian ASCII numerical values are NOT in
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alphabetical order...
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Micol Sys so MAB will handle the conversions to do comparisons, etc,
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eliminating those
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Micol Sys headaches.
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Micol Sys Anybody have any questions?
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Micol Sys By the way, we have the only Pravetz in North America
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Avery R C Yeah, just what is meant by 8-bit programming?
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Micol Sys Avery... 8 Bit programming means writting programs for the Apple
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IIe and IIc,
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Micol Sys which, unlike the 16-bit Apple IIgs, use 8-bit processors.
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Really, what is
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Micol Sys meant is "Apple IIe/c programming"
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Coach101 Do you have any "export" considerations to deal with in Canada as
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far
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Coach101 as shipping product to Russia?
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Micol Sys No export considerations at all. Canada is more liberal about
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exporting to the
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Micol Sys USSR than the US is (or, was).
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AFL SandyB Is it weird writing again for the 6502?
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Dave Lyons (Hey, IIe/IIc software runs on the GS, too.)
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Micol Sys Yes, it is wierd... we lost about 2k of program space because we
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Micol Sys had to convert all the 65C02 logic to 6502 logic.
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AFL Dyfet Is there any problem getting a legitimate Apple ProDOS running on
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the Pravetz?
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Micol Sys Yes...
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Micol Sys the Pravetz requires a modified version of ProDOS
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Micol Sys Go ahead, Avery
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Avery R C Is there any way to read a text file with all eight bits intact?
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Micol Sys In general, avery? From Applesoft?
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Avery R C The GET statement seems to chop off the 8th bit and only use 7.
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Avery R C Yeah, from Applesoft.
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Micol Sys Yes... Applesoft only uses 7 bits for TXT, and throws the rest
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away.
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Dave Lyons You can always BLOAD the text file in pieces (using ,B and ,L to
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say where & how much). Or call
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Dave Lyons assembly-language subroutines.
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Micol Sys You could BLOAD the file and PEEK it
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Avery R C Trying to make a small improvement over IIGIF, but ya need all 8
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bits to do it.
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Avery R C I guess, section-BLOAD might be the only way to do it.
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Micol Sys Dave is giving you the best answer. Use BLOAD and ,B and ,L to
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load in chunks
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Micol Sys at a time and then PEEK the information you need.
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Micol Sys BTW, in the USSR, there exists no copyright protection for
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software, so
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Micol Sys the makers of Pravetz would have been within their (USSR) legal
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rights to
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Micol Sys simply copy the Apple II ROMs and use them, but they couldnt.
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They would have
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Micol Sys loved to, because it would have made their job much easier.
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A2GS Why couldn't they copy them?
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AFA Gary J Sounds like they need to switch ASCII standards :)
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AFL Dyfet I think their main concern was legitimacy, A2...
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A2GS :)
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Micol Sys Because they need to use 8 bit ASCII to get a russian character
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set, and the
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Micol Sys Apple II ROMs only handle 7 bit ASCII
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A2GS Sure, if your going to copy something, you may as well copy it
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LEGITIMATELY.
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AFL SandyB Why didn't they just go with an 8086, why a 6502?
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AFA JoeyS Can't make an Apple II clone with an 8086. :)
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A2GS You could try.
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Avery R C Hell, would you expect OUR government to be able to copy such a
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thing either?
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AFL Dyfet Bulgaria is already a maker of PC and AT clones in Eastern Europe,
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Sandy, as
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AFL Dyfet well as the maker of the Pravetz components...
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Micol Sys A2GS, there are legitimate ways to copy products
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A2GS Sure...Put your name on it and SUE the original author.
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A2GS :)
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Micol Sys Avery: The people in the USSR who have designed this machine are
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Apple II
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Micol Sys fanatics like you and I, and the machine is designed for Soviet
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school children
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AFA Parik how large a market are we talking here anyways?
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A2GS How many kids are there in Russia?
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AFL SandyB 6
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AFA Parik billion
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A2GS 5, one of them defected.
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AFL Dyfet LOL, Sandy :)
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Micol Sys There are 15,000 Pravetz machines currently
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Micol Sys and they expect to sell thousands more.
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AFA Gary J Does the Pravetz have a Disk II type of disk drive?
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A2GS Nope they use Tape Recorders.
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Micol Sys Their disk drives are EXTREMELY unreliable. 10% failure rate.
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Almost as bad
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Micol Sys as Commodore ;)
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AFA Gary J :)
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AFL Dyfet Tonight's topic is 8 bit programming, Robocop, and that certainly
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includes the
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AFL Dyfet Soviet clone :)
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Dave Lyons Got a question, Robo?
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RoboCop002 Yes I do what is the next statment used for??
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A2GS Loops
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RoboCop002 Okay.
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Micol Sys Robo: The NEXT statement goes along with the FOR statement
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AFA Gary J FOR...NEXT
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Avery R C NEXT marks the endpoint of a loop structure.
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RoboCop002 Well I program and I use the For statment but not the Next.
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Avery R C How????
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RoboCop002 By using this. End:
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LL Lance I always thought NEXT was Steve Job's dream!
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AFA Parik (more like his nightmare it seems ;)
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A GibberFC I don't know... The cube makes a nice coffee table....
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AFL SandyB Monitor is what, green screen? Red? Who makes their floppies? Are
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they going to teach programming in
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AFL SandyB the schools?
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Micol Sys Sandy: Monitor is green (red...heh)... I don't know who makes
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their floppies...
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Micol Sys yes, they certainly ARE teaching programming in schools.. that's
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what MAB/USSR
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Micol Sys is for!
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A GibberFC a new Campaign.... Disk ][ for Russia <grin>
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AFL Dyfet GA A2, you have the floor now for your question....
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A2GS Thank You....
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A2GS This, of course is off tonights topic, But, Anyone know where I
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can find a
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A2GS Flood/Pattern Fill algorithm to implement in a paint program?
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A2GS GA
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Micol Sys There were some articles on flood fills in Call-Apple during the
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last
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Micol Sys year... I forget the issues.
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JDavies1 A2GS Mike Westerfield had an article in C.A.L.L. Apple last year
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about flood
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JDavies1 fills.
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A2GS Nope, Matt, I need the algorithm.
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A2GS I'll look...Any other suggestions?
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AFL Dyfet GA Gary...
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AFA Gary J I think there's some code for a flood fill
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AFA Gary J down deep in the QuickDraw II folder of the
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AFA Gary J IIGS Toolbox section of Let's Discuss..
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AFA Gary J (I think Mike Westerfield wrote the code in Let's Discuss here
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too)
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AFA Gary J GA
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AFL Dyfet I also recall an article or two in past Call-Apple's and
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Nibble...GA Parik...
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Micol Sys A2GS... I just found the article...
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A2GS Great....which issue?
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Micol Sys by Mike Westerfield... June 19894
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Micol Sys 1889
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Micol Sys 1989 (butter fingers)
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AFA Parik you can try tracing out the seedfill call in the sys 5.0 quickdraw
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aux. ga
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A2GS Trying to avoid a headache, Parik.
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Matt DTS Micol says Byte Works has 1889 programming style! A new
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development system war! Wow.
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AFA JoeyS :)
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A2GS Thanx
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A2GS You continue about the envasion of Russian II's
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AFL Dyfet Okay, I have one last question for Ron on the Pravetz...What has
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Apple's
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AFL Dyfet position been on the machine and this 'patched' ProDOS?? :)
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Matt DTS To my knowledge, Apple has made no official statement on the
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Pravetz.
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Micol Sys I don't think they have one. At least I havent heard it. It
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wouldn't
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Micol Sys really matter, since they're isnt much they could do about it.
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Matt DTS I'll tell you what our position on the Patched ProDOS is,
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though:
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Matt DTS (if Protocol permits)
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Micol Sys Damn, the Protocol... full speed ahead!
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Matt DTS 1) Patching ProDOS is against the licensing agreement (if that
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matters), and
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Matt DTS 2) They're either going to be stuck with that version or they're
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going to have to keep patching
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Matt DTS it every time we change something. It limits the developers to no
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new features, usually. GA.
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A2GS Whatever Apple's position is toward the old Franklin Ace
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systems....
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A2GS it's probably the same with the Pravetz.
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AFL Dyfet That is true, Ron, since Soviet law doesn't include private
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copyrights, at
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AFL Dyfet least at this time...if they ever get around to revamping/creating
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a modern
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AFL Dyfet legal system, then there may be a problem :).
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Matt DTS At this time, there is nothing specifically in ProDOS to make it
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*not* run on clones, but neither
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Matt DTS is any specific care taken to make sure revisions work on any but
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Apple machines. It's just where our
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Matt DTS priorities lie (strangely enough).
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Coach101 :)
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Micol Sys Well, now that you bring it up, Dyfet, they do have a new system
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Micol Sys They have a new system called a Pravetz 8c which is essentially a
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IIc type
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Micol Sys machine with everything built in (clock too, I think)... and it is
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even
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Micol Sys enhanced... but I don't think they can get the quantity right
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now.
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A2GS BTW What does "Pravetz" mean in Russian? Apple?
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AFL Dyfet I understand it is named after a village in Bulgaria...
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AFA JoeyS Ron got zapped. :(
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A2GS Naturally.
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A2GS I see the obvious correlation.
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AFL Dyfet I think we will have to wait for Ron to get back to us, but
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basically, the
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AFL Dyfet components are made in Bulgaria and assembled in the USSR. It is
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in fact a
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AFL Dyfet Bulgarian design.
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AFL SandyB LOL 2gs.
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AFL SandyB Dave, why did Bulgaria do it? Some special reason?
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AFL Dyfet I believe, while we're waiting for Ron, Sandy has the next
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question...GA
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AFL Dyfet Sandy...
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AFL SandyB I had a question about the Russian //c for Ron.
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A GibberFC Pravetz - Noun - Russian word for "HA you capitalist Pigs...We now
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have a real computer"
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AFL Dyfet Well, Bulgaria has been making PC (and recently AT) clones for
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awhile now...
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AFL Dyfet they have the technical skills/access that the USSR does not, I
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would guess.
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AFL SandyB They apparently have the technology, chips, plastics, etc. needed?
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Or do we give it to them?
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Micol Sys Grrrrrr
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Micol Sys Sorry all... crashed
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AFL Dyfet I think Ron would be better able to answer that, though...
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Micol Sys They make it all themselves (in Bulgaria, actually)
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Micol Sys They even use Russian RAM chips
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AFL SandyB Ron, do they happen to have a good flat screen for their //c type
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thing?
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Micol Sys get real ;)
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AFA JoeyS (I can see it now: The USSR's major export being //c
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flat-screens... :)
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AFL Dyfet Okay, I believe the next question is from Kris...GA Kris...
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Kris W How would you recommend a BASIC user to your Advance GS BASIC ?
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Micol Sys what do you mean? How are they promoting it?
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Kris W Well, sorta and how easy it is to learn the new language .
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Micol Sys Well, they are doing a mailing to all Pravetz owners...
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Micol Sys and they have also reached agreements to supply the Moscow school
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system
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Micol Sys with 1000 copies, and expect to make similar agreements with other
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school
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Micol Sys systems.
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Micol Sys It is very easy to learn. For instance, the full screen editor
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alone is WAY
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Micol Sys easier to teach than the "escape key" editing in Applesoft. And
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becuase of
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Micol Sys it's structure, it is easier to teach programming
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Micol Sys plus, great diagnostic tools,
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Micol Sys and in particular, for the russians, the Russian manual is a big
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help ;)
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Kris W I was wanting a much faster and less 'messy' type of language.
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Kris W Does it support hardware interface easily (Stereo Cards, Modems,
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etc)?
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Micol Sys Do you mean the GS version?
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Kris W Yes
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AFL Dyfet I think you drifted a little from Kris's question there, Ron :)
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Micol Sys I know
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Micol Sys Well, on the GS stereo is supported through the toolbox... odd
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channels are
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Micol Sys supposed to be Left (I think), and even channels are right.
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right?
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Kris W I'm in 8th Grade, beleive it or not! I wanted to know which
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language to learn.
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Micol Sys there is no built in modem support, but if you're experienced,
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you could
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Micol Sys write your own drivers (in assembly) and link them in.
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Micol Sys Kris, there is a category for MAB GS questions in the programming
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environments
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Micol Sys category in ADV. This is really an 8 Bit conference. I'll be
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glad to answer
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Micol Sys all your questions there.
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Kris W In session now or when ?
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Micol Sys I dont want to get too far off topic. Sorry
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Micol Sys It is there now.. just chose the Programming Environments category
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in ADV, and
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Micol Sys there you will find a folder called Micol Advanced BASIC for
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messages.
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AFL Dyfet Okay, we will now go back to Paladin's question...GA Paladin...
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Paladin100 I have a need to time events to .001 seconds. The need to be
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absolute is
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Paladin100 not as important as being consistant.
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Coach101 Do you mean make something happen every .001 second or....
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Coach101 Determine when something happened to within .001 second ? ga
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Paladin100 I want to time events that are longer than 1 second but have the
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resolution of
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Paladin100 .001 when the clock is "stopped", i.e. 2.563 seconds.
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AFL Dyfet Do you need to do anything else while waiting for your event?
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AFL Dyfet Is this an external event?
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Paladin100 not at this stage. I am building up to that.
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Paladin100 Yes it is external and plan to use an interface card
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(parallel....6522)
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Micol Sys You can use a Thunderclock to generate interrupts at a rate of
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2048hz, which
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Micol Sys I think generates interrupts every .001 seconds
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Micol Sys or is it .01
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AFL Dyfet The IIgs (and IIe with mousecard) offer interrupt timming only to
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1/60th of a
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AFL Dyfet second, but as Ron pointed out, the old Thunderclock would
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genorate interrupts
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AFL Dyfet to that high a resolution.
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Paladin100 I figure an assembly routine where a know amount of cycles are
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used and count
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Paladin100 the times through the loop.
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Dave Lyons 1/2048 < 0.0005, no?
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AFL Dyfet If you don't need to do anything but time the event, a loop in
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assembly would
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AFL Dyfet be your best bet.
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AFL Dyfet GA Jim...
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Jump Long Dan Strnad (one of my fellow DTS engineers) has some sample code
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that he's been working on that
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Jump Long might help you. It will only work on the IIGS (it uses the sound
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interrupts). We may have it
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Jump Long available in future sample code. If you need it sooner, you can
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write to us.
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Jump Long ga
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Paladin100 thanks just needed some ideas...
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Micol Sys Right Dave... Thunderclock will also do 256hz, which may be
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better
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Coach101 256hz is about .004 seconds..
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AFL Dyfet True, Ron...on faster interrupts you start running into IRQ
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overhead :)...
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Paladin100 I was looking at using the vertical blanking for a clock and
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then
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Paladin100 mathematically dividing it up.
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Micol Sys Right, Dyfet... 100 assembly language instructions will take about
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400ms to
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Micol Sys execute. with 2048hz the interrupt routine would be using 80% of
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the processor
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Micol Sys time
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AFL Dyfet You could use the IIgs's verticle line counter to determine where
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in the video
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AFL Dyfet cycle you are, and use that, in combination with the 60hz video
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blanking,
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AFL Dyfet possibly, as an alternate way of timing the event :)
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AFL Dyfet You would then know how many 60hz cycles were used, and where in
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the last
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AFL Dyfet 60hz, timewise, it was :)...
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Jump Long On the IIGS, you have to be careful when using some of the
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interrupt signals, because so much of the
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Jump Long system is interrupt driven. While one interrupt is being handled,
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others must wait or be ignored.
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Coach101 Whoa Ron.... 400ms or 400us for 100 instructions?
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Paladin100 Hmmm...Maybe I'm over my head in this question! I would be easy if
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I could
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Micol Sys 400 micro seconds (sorry(
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Coach101 I think Dyfet hit upon the simplest and best solution...
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Coach101 Install a VBL handler that just counts the number of times it is
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entered...
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Coach101 That should be pretty fast and not too significant a task.
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Paladin100 never mind...
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Jump Long (and hope you don't miss any of the VBL interrupts :)
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Coach101 THen when the event happens, disable the interrupts, grab the line
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counter,
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Coach101 grab the VBL counter, enable interrupts and do the arithmetic...
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AFL Dyfet Assuming he's not doing disk access, he should be fine at catching
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the VBL's...
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Paladin100 These sound like vaible ideas. I would prefer to use a IIe for
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this job though.
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Micol Sys Use a IIe with a thunderclock. You can even get one used pretty
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cheaply...
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Micol Sys and they provide assembly language examples of using the
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interrupts in their
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Micol Sys manual
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Jump Long Then you're best off using a clock card.
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Jump Long A.E. still makes a clock card, too.
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Paladin100 There would NOT be any disk accesses during the timing!
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AFL Dyfet Unfortunately, on the IIe, you cannot directly find out where in
|
|
the video
|
|
AFL Dyfet cycle you are...
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|
AFL Dyfet (no verticle line counter)
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Micol Sys I don't know if AE's clock can do 256hz or 2048hz interrupts
|
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AFL Dyfet However, a vapor lock could be used the same way :)
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AFL Dyfet Not all IIe clock cards were created equal...not all of them had
|
|
high
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|
AFL Dyfet resolution IRQ support.
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Paladin100 AEs does 1/2024 interupts (just dug out my OLD AE Timaster
|
|
manual)
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Jump Long that's what I was looking for, too, but could not find...
|
|
Jump Long (the manual)
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|
Paladin100 which is almost exactly .001 seconds (.000977)
|
|
AFL Dyfet You man 1/1024 :)...Yes, that's very close...
|
|
Coach101 About 2.4% low :)
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|
AFL Dyfet (mean=man)
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|
Paladin100 2.4% is more than close enough.
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|
Jump Long If you can find your AE disk that came with the clock, it has
|
|
sample code, too.
|
|
Paladin100 Thanks guys! I now have a good idea how to proceed!
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|
AFL Dyfet Okay, do we have any other questions for tonight...?
|
|
AFA Gary J Ron, what peripherals are available for the Russion Apple?
|
|
AFA Gary J LaserWriter? :)
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|
Micol Sys Gary... the machine has standard Apple II slots, so in theory it
|
|
can accept
|
|
AFA Gary J Russion = Russian
|
|
AFL Dyfet Probably loud clunky Bulgarian daisy-wheels :)
|
|
Micol Sys any cards... but they do not have enough of anything. Many of the
|
|
machines
|
|
AFA Gary J :)
|
|
Micol Sys do not even have disk drives!!
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|
AFA Gary J Cassette tapes? Oh no.
|
|
Micol Sys Actually, no Gary... the standard Pravetz set up is
|
|
Micol Sys 10 machines hooked to one IBM PC in a network with the PC being
|
|
the fileserver
|
|
Micol Sys so the 10 pravetz don't have, or need, disk drives
|
|
AFL Dyfet I recall an earlier Russian Apple II clone, the Ajvet, I think??
|
|
Coach101 Does the PC file server support "block" reads?
|
|
Micol Sys I don't know abou that, Dyfet
|
|
AFL Dyfet I suspect it simply emulated ProDOS block requests and nothing
|
|
fancy...
|
|
Micol Sys Coach.. they are working on the ProDOS drivers to give the machine
|
|
full
|
|
Micol Sys prodos support. Right now, I think most of their networks only
|
|
support DOS 3.3
|
|
AFL Dyfet Hmm...
|
|
Micol Sys But they are getting ProDOS to work...
|
|
Micol Sys they also have a disk drive (the one with the 10% failure rate)
|
|
that will
|
|
AFA Gary J At least DOS 3.3 can be adequately patched :)
|
|
Jump Long No GS/OS?? ;)
|
|
AFL Dyfet Who's PC's are they using, Ron?
|
|
Micol Sys read IBM disks, as well as ProDOS disks
|
|
AFL Dyfet Or are western PC clones already that common in Russia?
|
|
Micol Sys Yes... they make up the vast majority of computers
|
|
Micol Sys Macs are very rare
|
|
AFL Dyfet But for school, they want Apple II's...??
|
|
Micol Sys They'll take anything they can get. The Pravetz is a bargain
|
|
because
|
|
Micol Sys they are cheaper than the PC's, and they don't have to pay for
|
|
them in scarce
|
|
Micol Sys western currency (as opposed to the real thing)
|
|
AFA Gary J Heheh...there's a vast supply of educational software already
|
|
there... that
|
|
AFA Gary J doesn't work :)
|
|
AFA Gary J (On Pravetz)
|
|
AFL Dyfet I take it then that the Bulgarian PC clones were not that exciting
|
|
:)
|
|
Micol Sys I don't know... I'm not really too familiar with them... but I do
|
|
know that
|
|
Micol Sys they have very limited production capabilities. And exploding
|
|
monitors.
|
|
Micol Sys the single largest cause of house fires in the USSR is TV's
|
|
catching on fire.
|
|
AFL Dyfet I've only heard of one incident of a monitor exploding in the US
|
|
:)
|
|
Dave Lyons Why? Is it bad TVs, or are they just really careful with
|
|
matches?
|
|
AFL Dyfet There is always a risk of implosion...Western manufacturers are
|
|
more careful
|
|
AFL Dyfet on how they make picture tubes...
|
|
AFL Dyfet Have higher standards...(FAR HIGHER, I gather)...
|
|
Micol Sys Bad TV tubes. Vladimir told me that there is a 20% failure rate
|
|
of Pravetz
|
|
Micol Sys monitors.
|
|
AFL Dyfet In the Soviet Union, who ya gonna sue??
|
|
Micol Sys Ghostbusters?
|
|
AFL Dyfet :)
|
|
AFA Gary J :)
|
|
Micol Sys In Japan, failure rates are measured in parts per thousand (as in
|
|
2 defectives
|
|
Micol Sys per thousand)... in USSR they're talking 20 failures per HUNDRED
|
|
AFL Dyfet Reminds me of C-64 production reliability :)
|
|
AFL Dyfet Never realized Commodore was up to third world industrial
|
|
standards before :)
|
|
Micol Sys LOL
|