This Week With My Coleco ADAM  9711.09

by Richard F. Drushel  (drushel@apk.net)



I.  Source Code for SmartBASIC 1.x.

     This week's article will be very short, since most of my
ADAM-related typing has been devoted to the object of the
article.  Namely, I have finished converting my regenerated 
source code for SmartBASIC 1.x into Z80ASM+ format.  The com-
pleted source assembles to give a binary identical to that 
which I got by BSAVEing the SB1.x memory block (with data areas 
being set to zero in the source, of course).  The source is 
available as a PKZIP 2.04g archive for anonymous ftp at

     ftp://junior.apk.net/pub/users/drushel/sb1x20y.zip

When you unzip this, you'll get a biiiigggg file (481628 bytes)
called SB1X20Y.ASM.  This is an ASCII text version of the
WordPerfect 5.0 document I used as the basis for my editing.

     As I mentioned in the last TWWMCA, part of my rationale for
releasing this source is so that it ends up in multiple copies in
multiple locations, so some disaster here doesn't result in its
being lost forever.  So, if you have enough disk space (and
connect time to download the 90K .ZIP archive), please grab it 
and squirrel it away somewhere.

     The source is only partially commented, because I have not
had time (since 1994, the last time I worked on it) to type in 
all the handwritten comments I have on the original hand-
assembled source code (and the hand-commented disassembly of 
SmartBASIC 1.0 from January 1990 or so!).  So, it clearly 
violates all the Good Programming Practices that I've harped 
on previously...but at the time I did the disassemblies and 
reverse-engineering, the only computer I had access
to was my Tandy 2800HD 286-12MHz laptop with a 20 MB hard drive. 
On that same machine, it takes 12 minutes to assemble the
SB1X20Y.ASM source to binary using Z80ASM+ under the Z80MU.EXE 
CP/M emulator.

   Remember also that this source code has not been reorganized
to get rid of the spaghetti leftovers from my patching, and also
from the original spaghetti in SmartBASIC 1.0.  The next step is
to do this reorganization, which probably could reduce the size 
of the program by 2K at least, probably more.  This extra space 
would become available  as extra workspace for user programs, or
else for extra features in SB1.x.

II.  Next Time.

     I don't know what's up for next time; goodness knows I have
enough to do around here!


     See you next week!

     *Rich*

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