[Coco] BASIC09 - How good is it?

[Gene Heskett]

On Tuesday 14 May 2013 09:20:13 Rogelio Perea did opine:

> On Tue, May 14 2013, Nick Marentes wrote:
> 
> Oh? So there is no editor apart from the standard OS-9 one?
> 
> > Surely someone has written a programmers editor for OS-9 by now?
> > 
> > And does this mean that I can't type a program and immediately run it
> > to see if it is working?
> > 
> > I run my code hundreds of time in the course of creating my program.
> > 
> > Compiling each time would drive me nuts.
> 
> Not sure I follow you, but... Basic09 has a built in editor that follows
> the style of the OS9 EDIT macro editor. The one advantage of using
> Basic09's built in editor is that each line you enter will be checked on
> the fly and any errors immediately flagged. It takes some time to get
> comfortable moving around the code using this editor but once you're
> used to it the editing flows with no second thought. Once the procedure
> /routine is entered you can test right away, no need to compile - you'd
> do that once your whole program is over and done.
> 
> If you want to use another editor (like VED) you can do so, write the
> code there, save it on disk and load it from within Basic09.
> 
> Chose your poison :-)

The Basic09 editor is actually pretty speedy.  It checks when you hit enter 
for gross syntax stuff, and again for structure when you quit it.  If no 
errors, you can run the code as is.  For functions needing higher maths I 
use vim (tsedit) to make C.src using double-precision calls from our 
libraries, they are accurate to 16 or 17 digits to the right of the decimal 
point.  Or for lessor width, faster math Basic09's own editor.  For general 
utility stuff, its vim again, writing in assembly.  But I learned to code 
at the most basic level on an RCA 1802 MCU, by looking up the nemonics hex 
code and entering it with the monitor's keypad on a cosmac elf board.  I 
thought I was in hog heaven when I found we had an actual working assembler 
for the 6809.  MinTED has promise as a vim replacement but needs a help 
card that can be printed out since the command keys are different.

That 1802 program I still have a paper copy of in a bag on the top shelf 
here.  Also several copies recorded on a broadcast audio cart in that same 
bag.  I'd grabbed a cart recorder that was running slow, but if you played 
on the machine that recorded it, it all worked fine.  The last time I 
talked to anybody at KRCR in Redding CA, where I was when I built that 
machine and wrote that code, it was still in several times a day use, doing 
what I wrote it & built it to do, 15 years later!  In computer time, thats 
a couple of eons.

No one ever built a box to do what that one did, which was to let you 
search the VCR's tape for the first frame of video you wanted to air, tell 
it how long the commercial was in std lengths of commercials ranging from 
10 seconds on up to 5 minutes by pushing the appropriate button, and hit 
the doit button.  It would back up the tape 15 seconds, roll it forward, 
and at T-10.0 seconds start recording a new digitally generate academy 
countdown in .1 second increments (I built that video hardware too), 
triggering an audio tone that synchronized the playback sequencer at T-5 
seconds, and trigger another short audio tone 5 seconds before the end of 
that commercial that started the next machine until it was out of machines.
The idea was to save a dub generation, which was pretty damaging to the 
image quality in the early days of the 3/4" U-Matic tape format being used 
at stations that couldn't afford the KTLA style of 150k$/copy machines.

I was at the NAB in '79, and Microtime had the beginnings of one on 
display, but when I told them what else it needed to do yet to catch up 
with mine, they put theirs back in the truck & never showed it again.  No 
one in years later would ever admit to having it.  For what it did, it was 
at least as handy as a lock button on the outhouse door.  I suppose they 
didn't want to do anything that had prior art else they'd get sued out of 
existence. FWIW, I am amazed they got away with some of the stuff they did.  
But that was 35 years ago.  And like any outfit top heavy with lawyers, 
they fell by the wayside eventually.

I'll get me coat...  There are those on this list that can remember the 
first time I told it.  I think the list was still on the Princeton.edu 
servers then.  Time does fly when you are having fun doesn't it. ;-)

Cheers, Gene
-- 
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