[Coco] *ALL RAM* BBS system, and cassette emulation on Xroar

[Allen Huffman]

On Apr 2, 2013, at 4:35 PM, Rod Barnhart <rod.barnhart at gmail.com> wrote:

> I found the backup of the documentation I was keeping. I had made an entry
> dated 08-26-2008. I had modified All Ram to use the disk drive during

Is this online somewhere?

> testing (by changed the #-1's to #1's in both ALLRAM.BAS and EDITOR.BAS)
> and it worked for about two mintutes before it died out, freezing the CoCo.
> I suspected the terminal driver (remote2.bin) at the time, and apparently
> inquired on this list about it. You mentioned another driver, but either
> didn't name it, or I didn't document it, but regardless I was unsuccessful
> in finding another one to test with. But it did run, but, as I said, pretty
> unstable ;)

Remote Terminal Driver comes to mind, as a commercial one. The one in Rainbow, REMOTE2, didn't stop the BREAK key, so I am expecting that Graham used a different one. Also, in those days, INKEY$ didn't work over them, so INKEY$ could be used for sysop interactions (holding down CLEAR to enter chat, etc). 

One remote terminal driver used by a local Houston CoCo BBS just hooked all output to the modem, but all input was done through some other type of call (assembly exec or the USR command or whatever it was?). Thus, if it crashed, you saw "OK" but had no access to the system. That was a big plus, with the downside meaning that you couldn't easily run programs (online games) without modifying them for replacement input routines.

ALLRAM has a bit of assembly at the start, which I poke in to the top of screen memory since I know every CoCo had it and it wasn't being used by anything. That does a PCLEAR0 type operation, to get as much RAM as possible, and could have conflicted. Likewise, Disk Basic had less memory as well, and early assembly cassette programs sometimes wouldn't run on disk systems due to that.

I wish I had been paying attention back then. I would have loved to have watched your progress.
-
Allen Huffman - PO Box 22031 - Clive IA 50325 - 515-999-0227 (vmail/TXT only)
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