markg@nvuxf.UUCP (M. Guzdial) (05/29/85)
Thanks to all for the tremendous response I've had suggesting terminal
programs and Pascal compilers. I apologize to those to whom I was unable
to reply -- I'm still a rookie at "riding the Net" and generate a lot of
"UNABLE TO SEND" messages. The following is the summary of the responses
and other investigations.
The two most suggested programs were Ascii Express Professional by United
Software and Softerm II from Softronics. Ascii Express Professional runs
quite a bit cheaper than Softerm II, and though it supports 1200 baud and
other important features, it does not support the VT100 terminal emulation I
require. Softerm II also includes a "mini-keypad," according to one of
the respondents, for special functions. Softerm II lists for $195 and is
available from Softronics, Inc in Memphis, Tenn.
Apple's "Apple Access" was also suggested, and does have VT100
emulation as an "ANSI" terminal type. I have no pricing information or
other respondents' comments.
In general, most of the Pascal suggestions involved either installing the
Z-80 processor for my //c and purchasing Turbo Pascal, or trying to
buy an old or used version of UCSD Pascal, perhaps Version 1.1. Neither
of those interested me, so I went ahead and purchased Kyan Pascal from
Kyan Software, 1850 Union Street, Suite 183, San Francisco, CA, 94123.
For $69.95, the package includes a Pascal to 6502 Machine Code Compiler,
an Assembler, and a Full-Screen Editor. I played with the package over
the Memorial Day Weekend and enjoyed it tremendously.
I'm not very familiar with Pascal -- my experiences are limited to
trying to implement interrupt routines in Apple UCSD Pascal on a II+
and reading parts of Peter Grogono's "Programming with Pascal" -- so
I can't be a great judge of the compiler, but I was able to type in the
Tower of Hanoi program from Grogono's book, without modification, and had
it compile and execute the first time. I put together a program to
assemble and print a linked list, with a 'dispose()' statement, and it
ran fine.
It's Prodos-based, but only uses 64K, so by loading the editor and my
source into the RAM disk, my compiles and editing sessions were really
quick. They claim to be twice as fast as Turbo Pascal and four times the
speed of Apple UCSD Pascal. You can have include files, and in-line
assembly language.
However, you are getting a $69.95 package, and not the $250 UCSD stuff,
and it shows. I haven't encountered any bugs, yet, but I've found several
"annoyances." For example, errors on the command line are met with "PRODOS
ERROR " and a hexadecimal Prodos error code, a rather unfriendly error message.
The compiler takes command line options such as printing the assembler code
as the Pascal is compiled (a really nice feature in my opinion), dumping
the error messages to a specific device, and sending the object code to a
specified file or eliminating it completely. Unfortunately, the manual's
command-line examples do not work, and I discovered by trial-and-error that
only one option may be selected at a time, a limitation not mentioned in
the manual.
Again, thanks for all the help.
Mark
--
Mark Guzdial
{ihnp4, houxm}!nvuxf!markg
(201) 949-5471