A89: Re: A Couple Questions. . .

To: <assembly-89@lists.ticalc.org>
Subject: A89: Re: A Couple Questions. . .
From: "Miles Raymond" <m_rayman@bigfoot.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1998 10:41:52 -0600
Delivered-To: assembly-89-outgoing@towerguard.unix.edu.sollentuna.se
Reply-To: assembly-89@lists.ticalc.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Noveck <noveck@pluto.njcc.com>
To: assembly-89@lists.ticalc.org <assembly-89@lists.ticalc.org>
Date: Monday, December 28, 1998 7:51 AM
Subject: A89: A Couple Questions. . .

>Now that the new emulator's out I've started working on assembly games for
>the 89 - I've got a fair amount of experience with Z80 ASM (anyone play
>Poker86? Still needs optomizing. . .) and I've got a few questions I'm
>hoping you guys can help me out with:
>
>1) It took me an hour just to get the assembler working - I kept on getting
>some "unrecognized character" error in the included files.  I eventually got
>around it when I used Plusshell's asm89 batch file (should have read the
>documentation on how to use that =), but why were those errors occuring in
>the first place?

I can't help you there, it's all just experimentation and reading the docs that come with the
compiler.

>2) Which shell does everyone here use, and which do you prefer to program
>for?  Which set of libraries should I use (ie, Doors' Graphlib or
>Plusshell's Gray4Lib)? I know that both are supposed to be compatible, but
>I'm not going to test it individually with each shell. . .

Personally, I use DoorsOS because it's updates more often, and has better features.  (ie: shift-on)
A few bugs, but I still think that it's better.

About the libraries, I've asked this question before, and got mumbled answers, so I decided to use
logic.  Anyone who downloads your game will most likely read your included txt file about the game
and see that you need a shell to run it.  They then download the shell and find out what libs it
needs to run.  I think that they would go to the libs section of ticalc.org's /pub/89/asm directory,
since that is what the directory is for...  So to answer your question, I think that you should use
the libs in the ftp://ftp.ticalc.org/pub/89/asm/libs directory.

>3) It seems that the 89 and 92+ are almost the same right down to LCD
>Memory -- what are the major differences, other than the ROM Calls and
>reading from the keyboard? I see that there's some 89 emulation code
>commented out in the plusshell source. . .

I think that the only differences between the 89 and the 92+ are the LCD mem (even though it's
really just the LCD screen itself, since the LCD mem is still there on the 89) and the keyboard
codes.  I think everything else is exactly the same, but I'm not sure- I don't have a 92+.

>So far I've managed to get my sprite displayed wrong and crash the emulator
>more times than I can count - any help would be appreciated =)
>
>        -Scott

-Miles Raymond      EML: m_rayman@bigfoot.com
ICQ: 13217756       IRC: Killer2        AIM: M_RayMan32
http://www.bigfoot.com/~m_rayman/