BAOS - The Basic Assembly Operating System (version 0.02 and higher)
====================================================================

First of all: Many thanks for the time to take a look at this program. Currently
this project is in a pre-alpha stage. In fact this release is not yet a working
OS, but to announce what will come and to show that this is no one day fly.

You can see this release as a demonstration of what will come. However, with
this release (version 0.02) things are moving towards a real OS. Altough not yet
all the functionality needed to run programs is implemented.



About the License
-----------------

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the
Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA.


About this release
------------------

As mentioned this is - agian - a demo release. From this release on, you should
read the attached manual (Manual.pdf) for information on the OS, and how things
work. If you can't open it, you probably need Adobe Reader (just do a google
search to obtain it).

Also from this release on, all emulation functionality is broken. The only
emulator known that is able to run it is called "Wabbitemu" and in beta stage.

You can obtain wabbitemu from:

           http://www.revsoft.org/wabbitemu.zip

It's a windows emulator, but if you run (like I do) Linux, you are able to
run it inside Wine (www.winehq.com).


About the name
--------------

The name BAOS might not sound that logical. The 2 first letters stand for "Basic
Assembly", which refers to the Basic assembly (to ti-83+ Z80) Compiler, or for
short BZC. In fact this is a child project of the bigger BZC project and at this
time, approx. 50 % of the code is ported from the original BZC header files.
Since BZC 0.2 is not yet ready, all the source-code is written in Assembly, but
later on there will be Basic Asm sources in it too. Also people will be able to
use Basic Asm as language to develop programs for BAOS.


The toughts behind BAOS
-----------------------

BAOS is developed (well, actually "is being developed") to be a real Operating
System for TI-83+ based calculators. It should turn your calculator into a real
computer, which can be used for mathematical purposes, but not as main target.
Additional functionality should be easy to implement trough the use of
libraries.


The current stage of the project
--------------------------------

Currently there are only some low-level things ready. Omong others:

  * The Memory Manager   (handles memory requests)
  * The Timer Handler    (handles interrupts)
  * The Process Manager  (handles process creating, removal and switching. Used
                         for multitasking)
  * The LCD driver       (handles the LCD i/o in port level)
  * The Display Manager  (handles virtual screens, screen buffering, etc. Only
                         parts ready)
  * Everything needed for text-output to the screen.


What will come
--------------

I spend more then half a year preparing this project. Among other things, you
can expect a directory-based filesystem, an on-calc compiler and support for the
XFree-TI project (another sub-project of BZC, a graphical environment for your
calculator).
To get an idea of the exact current stage and of what will be in the OS, take
a look at the project-status section of the BAOS website.

You can find it, together with the BZC project at:

                       http://bzc.sourceforge.net/

Just select BAOS -> Project Status in the menu at the left side of the page.

There is also a lot more on the BAOS website: 

  * A complete function reference.
  * The latest news on BAOS
  * Special documentation on (for example) the multitasking facility.

and more....



If you have any ideas, comments or other feedback, please email me at:

   ideas@hofhom.nl           (subject "BAOS" please)


