[Coco] DW3 WireBug mode

[Mark Marlette]

Agreed...would like to see that as well!

Open source.... :) Any takers!!!!!



________________________________
 From: Aaron Wolfe <aawolfe at gmail.com>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com> 
Sent: Wednesday, July 3, 2013 3:50 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] DW3 WireBug mode
 

Yes, I understand and totally agree with Boisy's desire to maintain
compatibility by sticking to an 8k ROM.

If we could do an "experimenters" ROM that either removed some things
or went to the 16k size without touching the "stock" 8k HDBDOS, then
we would have room for not only the DW virtual I/O but lots of other
things people have suggested over the years but that would not fit in
stock 8k.

For instance, a 16k rom could allow support for FDC, DW, and SuperIDE
all at once.  Of course this ROM would not be as compatible as the
stock 8k rom, but it would provide some oft requested functionality.

Since HDBDOS has become open now, maybe its time to think about
splitting into 8k "stock" branches and a 16k "experimental" branch.

Just thoughts.
-A


On Wed, Jul 3, 2013 at 4:40 PM, Mark Marlette <mmarlette at frontiernet.net> wrote:
> Aaron,
>
> This would require that HDB-DOS go to 16K, as I recall there was about 8 bytes left free in the current version.
>
> There are reason why Boisy never broke the 16K barrier, which of course he knew how to do in a heartbeat. I just don't know them ATM.
>
> So unless the code is compact or something is removed.......not a lot of space left.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Mark
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: Aaron Wolfe <aawolfe at gmail.com>
> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 3, 2013 3:16 PM
> Subject: Re: [Coco] DW3 WireBug mode
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 3, 2013 at 1:15 PM, Bill Pierce <ooogalapasooo at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> Aaron had suggested at one point that maybe someone could alter the basic roms so that the "PRINT#" statement be extended beyond -2 (-3, -4, etc) to reflect the dw ports (N1, N2 ~ N14) so that "PRINT#-3 $DWCMDSTRING" would result in the string being sent to the represented DW port. I think it's a good idea, the problem is finding room in the rom area to put the code. This would allow any DW cmd string to be sent directly to the DW ports from a BASIC program. You could even write a BASIC MIDI program and send the MIDI bytes directly to N14 (DW's midi port). The routines to actually send and recieve the bytes are already in the HDBDOS code. This is how the DW version of Lyra writes Midi data to DW. There's just no way of accessing the routines except through ML.
>>
>>  I personally would be willing to drop cassette and printer routines to gain the "PRINT#-1" thru "PRINT#-E" to make all the ports equal in naming convention. I can always use Vcc to transfew tape programs to disk and who (but Gene) uses a real printer with the Coco these days?
>>
>
> I'd love to see support for the dw channels in HDBDOS.  You could
> write a telnet BBS or even a web server in BASIC :)
> Giving up cassette support would be fine by me.  That makes me wonder
> about other possibilities too.. any BASIC tokens that take up a lot of
> space and could be done without most the time?  Maybe PLAY or DRAW...
> I think SOUND needs a small table of the waveform too.  The idea would
> be that this ROM would be for people interested in exploring new
> software using the new capabilities, so perfect backwards
> compatibility could be abandoned.  After all, one can always load the
> "pure" rom as needed.
> It's interesting stuff.
>
> -Aaron
>
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