Re: LZ: Programing


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Re: LZ: Programing



>I just started programing Z-Shell, but I was wondering.  Is there anyway
>that a person could have a utility on the 85 which you could program
>ASM  on the calc.  Like TI-Basic but istead like TI-ASM.  I don't know
>if it's possible considering that you have to compile it and assmble
>it.  Just wondering.  It would be a very handy.  You could program 
>your ZS games while in math or something.  I don't know.

It can be done.  There is a program called "compiler" or something
like that on ticalc.org for doing this.  It requires you to enter
in the numerical values of each byte in the program into a list which
it then makes into a ZShell string.  

It should be possible to write a program which takes normal assembly
code and compiles that into machine code.  The problem is that such
a program would take a large amount of memory.  Assembler sources
would be huge if it stored the exact text.  If the assembler
assembled each instruction as you entered it (displaying the
program listing from a disassembly) and only stored the actual
stuff you typed for label names, the size of source problem would
diminish.

The big problem with this is that if you make even a small error
in the program you could easily crash the calculator.  If this
happens then your entire project will be wiped out and you would
have to completely start over.  A full game is usually more than
a thousand lines of code, and it is very hard to write the whole
thing without any mistakes.

--
Patrick Davidson (ariwsi@juno.com)
Visit my home page!  Stuff for Amiga, TI-85, even DOS!
http://www.calweb.com/~kwdavids/patrick/
http://www.toptown.com/hp/ariwsi/


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