hall@ittral.UUCP (Doug Hall) (05/21/85)
Well, I have about decided to purchase the UniQuad board from Hazelwood. (You haven't heard about the UniQuad? It's a single board 68008 machine with a bunch of serial/parallel ports, a disk controller, SASI interface, OS-9/68K, BASIC09, a word processor, and a spreadsheet.) Anyway, I won't have the bucks for Microware's C compiler for a while, so it looks like I'll be stuck with BASIC09. From what I've read, this doesn't look too bad as far as BASIC-like languages go - in fact, it goes a long way toward making BASIC a decent language. (No, as it stands, BASIC is NOT a decent language, and folks who use it eventually go blind and grow hair on their palms.) So here are some questions: 1) How fast does BASIC09 run? Given that it compiles to some wierd pseudo code, I don't expect blinding speed, but it's at least sort of compiled isn't it? Benchmark results (same machine, please - let's not compare CoCo's and VAXen here!) would be welcomed. 2) Can you write decent applications in BASIC09? Stuff that you wouldn't be ashamed to sell? Is there a royalty involved on the runtime package. (I assume there has to be some form of runtime support since it's interpreted.) 3) Is the intermediate code compatible across both OS-9 and OS-9/68k? If I write a BASIC09 program under OS-9/68k, can I move the intermediate code over and run it under OS-9 for the 6809? Or do I have to move the source as well? Thanks in advance for any info. I am becoming more and more interested in OS-9 and am determined to get some sort of system up and running. I have just about ruled out building my own due to the high cost (~$1500) of porting OS-9/68k to a new machine. That's what Microware charges for a "Port-Pak" allowing you to bring up OS-9 on a prototype of a "one-of-a-kind" machine. Doug Hall ITT Telecom, Raleigh, NC ...ittvax!ittral!hall ** OS-9, OS-9/68k, and BASIC09 are trademarks of Microware and Motorola, I think. UniQuad is a strange name, and is a trademark of Hazelwood Computing. Just BASIC by itself is a crock.
sjt@sb6.UUCP (SIDNEY THOMPSON) (05/24/85)
While it your money that is being spent you should be aware that there are several law suits against Hazelwood presently. It seems that they are behind on what they owe and are not currently shipping boards. This is only what I have heard from others so they may have cleaned everything up by now. You might try having it shipped COD. Frank Hogg is also selling the same board with case power supply and drives so you might check with him before you order from Hazelwood.