Subject: [Coco] 512K Basic by Microcom

[Stephen H. Fischer]

Hi,

Are you saying that there is no Disk support for saving programs?

The words you quote say "hard disk".

How about Program disk I/O?

If there is disk support, then it sounds like the command set is unchanged
for DECB.

If you can find the 4 page manual and can sent me a  scan it would be
appreciated.

Even the list of errors would be interesting as that might reveal how the
program works.

If there is no way to store the programs, then it is very useless.

I cannot believe that anything was released (escaped) without the ability
to save programs. The developer(s) themselves would need to be able to
do this during the development.


thanks

Stephen H. Fischer


Robert Gault wrote:
> I have the program but don't use it. There is a 4 page "manual" that
> comes with it of which only two pages describe the program.
>
> There is no command set other than EXEC 465 which prints a diagnostic
> list of numbers for Microcom.
>
> The program uses the memory for DLOAD and cassette commands so these no
> longer exist. Apparently the only thing that 512K Basic does is keep
> track of your Basic program size and extend the available memory. On a
> 512K system with default program options, there is 408K for program
> memory and 16K for variables.
>
> 512K Basic will not be compatible with RGBDOS or HDBDOS and probably not
> with ADOS.
>
> The value of this program is questionable as on most Coco systems there
> would be no way to store the large programs created under 512K Basic.
> This is stated by Microcom who also said, "Future Versions of 512K Basic
> will support hard drives." I don't know whether they got further than
> the version 1.0 which I have.
>
> Stephen H. Fischer wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> If this is a line number Basic using a very similar command set, I would
>> be interested in any details.
>>
>> Perhaps someone can point us to Rainbow ads or a review for more on the
>> command set.
>>
>> Stephen H. Fischer
>>
>>
>> Brian Palmer wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Kevin,
>>> This is a simple overview of what 512k basic does.
>>> 512k basic gives you access to the other 490k in basic, which normally,
>>> you only have access to 22k,plus you can have multiple 24k files in
>>> different parts of memory, and chain them together to make one big file.
>>> And it does work with 128k coco3, just minus some features.
>>>
>>> Viva La coco