[Techtoolslist] FS: More 9100A items

[martin at guddler.co.uk]

I forgot when I posted yesterday saying that I could look at a Mac  
version of FIDE that there is the 9LC compiler sat behind FIDE making  
the compiled scripts! I started looking at writing a Mac compiler for  
the 9010 a couple years ago but like so much else it went out of the  
window when the 9100 came along. I didn't actually cut many lines of  
code on it, but I looked into the theory of it all and it all seemed  
perfectly straight forward and "do-able". Some of the things required  
for that you must have already tackled in order to put in the syntax  
highlighting and recognition of FIDE.

Nothing wrong with VB6 incidentally. Sure, it's not desperately  
pleasant to work with, even down to the fact that mouse wheels aren't  
supported in the IDE but that's not surprising really as they weren't  
the norm back when it came out. You can be very clever with VB itself,  
even getting to do some pseudo object oriented stuff. I don't use it  
much any more but I do still have to from time to time as I have to  
write custom modules for some legacy software even now in my job.

Anyway, getting back on track, for everyone else's benefit!

I've not seen the slowness of the 9100A, probably because I was lucky  
enough to get an FT with the faster processor and I'm also running off  
of compact flash memory instead of a hard drive. I've done a few bits  
and pieces that I really should put on my website, but none are  
finished properly and lack error handlers and the like.

Like most other people on here, I imagine, I only tend to sit there  
doing stuff on the 9100 when I have stuff to fix so once the board is  
working I end up moving on and forgetting all about it. And I have to  
admit it, a lot of the time using it in immediate mode gets the job  
done!

The only things that i've really done so far are implement the CRC  
calculation program that Andy posted up here a year back, and I also  
took Phil Eaton's Quick Basic program for calculating Atari signatures  
and converted them to 9100 so I have CAT box signature routines on my  
9100. I'd like to write a menu based system so that for any game I  
want to troubleshoot I only have to produce a couple of text files  
with some settings in them and i can run a bunch of standard tests,  
selecting them from a front end. As with all things though, it'll  
probably never happen due to time. It's always quicker to fix the  
board than it is to write something to make it quicker to do it next  
time round :)

Martin.


On 23 Feb 2009, at 02:38, James Bright wrote:


> As a professional .NET developer... I can tell you it ain't pretty.  

> I did

> it in VB6 (which I had to "learn" because I hate VB) because at the  

> time

> there weren't any great serial APIs for .NET. That's probably not true

> anymore. I did start on a 9100A version of FIDE (because I find the  

> 9100A

> soooo much slower than I can actually type) but that was about the  

> time

> that my second child came along so I didn't have much time to devote  

> to

> that. Besides that 9010A is a lot more approachable for anyone  

> beginning to

> troubleshoot.

>

> How are you making out on the 9100A? There is a lot of potential  

> there. I

> could "shotgun" a board a lot more quickly with the 9010, but the 9100

> would be more thorough if you have the time to invest. The thought did

> occur to me to sell my bench 9100... then I booted it up tonight and  

> went

> into editor mode and reminded myself how cool a little test machine  

> it was

> :-)

>

> JB

>

> ----------------------------------------

> From: martin at guddler.co.uk

> Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2009 9:25 PM

> To: "Technical Tools Mail List" <techtoolslist at flippers.com>

> Subject: Re: [Techtoolslist] FS: More 9100A items

>

>> P.S. I am thinking of opening up FIDE as open source. Thoughts? Of

> course

>> it's written in crappy VB6.

>

> I'd certainly be interested in taking a look!

>

> A few years ago I'd have offered to take it on and bring it up  

> to .NET,

> and maintain it etc. but I'm not sure I'd ever get round to it these  

> days

> since I'm now using the 9100 so haven't really used FIDE in ages.

>

> If there was enough interest then I could look at porting it to  

> RealBasic

> and doing a Mac version but I doubt there's enough interest out  

> there to

> warrant it and I'd also have to borrow a 9010 in order to test the  

> results

> really.

>

> Martin.

>

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