[Coco] Drive Wire strangeness

[Tim Fadden]

Hijacked!

please change the Re: when appropriate.

On 12/8/2013 9:41 PM, Robert Gault wrote:
> Steve Ostrom wrote:
>>
> ><snip>
>> It seems as if OS-9 is not very intuitive, which might mean it is very
>> strong.  If I put a similar effort into learning OS-9 from manuals 
>> and other
>> sources as I have in learning BASIC and 6809 assembly, will I be able 
>> to write
>> OS-9 programs just as easily?  I know this is really late in the game 
>> for Coco
>> programming, but I've recently retired, and now have more time to 
>> spend on the
>> Coco.  I'd love to create some kind of OS-9 program, even if it is 
>> not very
>> useful, and it would be for my use only.
>>
>> Programs that are written in OS-9 for the Coco, could they have been 
>> written
>> easier in assembly or BASIC?  Were they written in OS-9 for 
>> portability only, or
>> because the programmer could do things in OS-9 that they could not in 
>> assembly
>> or BASIC?  I realize that BASIC is slow, and is an interpreted language.
>> Assembly is native and blazingly fast.  What are the advantages in 
>> writing
>> software in OS-9, besides portability to other systems that also run 
>> OS-9?
>>
>> Thanks for your opinions.
>>
> Steve,
>
> Well you certainly are correct in saying if a program can be written 
> in pure assembly, it will be at least as good if not better and faster 
> than one in OS-9 assembly. That being said there are reasons for using 
> a higher level language than machine language.
>
> OS-9 at the command level is a portable language as it should work on 
> any OS-9 computer. But you are, I think, trying to compare pure 
> assembly to OS-9 assembly language. There is not much difference 
> except that OS-9 system calls act as a bridge to the hardware.
>
> For example with OS-9 assembly, it is easier to write programs that 
> need disk I/O or screen I/O as that is handled by system calls. You 
> don't need to reinvent the wheel for each program you want to write.
> There are few really good entry points to the Basic and Disk ROMs so 
> the number of simple "system calls" are very limited compared to what 
> is available in OS-9.
>
> Now if writing with OS-9 commands is too complicated, just move to a 
> still higher level language, Basic09, to get a language more powerful 
> and just as easy to use as Disk Basic.
>
> Robert
>
>
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