[net.micro.amiga] Help with AbasiC

warren@ssc-vax.UUCP (Warren Kring) (11/19/85)

Hello world!
	Please excuse me, but this is my first posting to the net.
I, like many of you, have been reading the net for some time now
looking for some inside info on the Amiga before buying one.  Well,
I'm somewhat happy to say that I have finally made the purchase.
	After an annoying problem with my external drive (the one
I received with my system didn't have warranty registration card or
one of the protective cards in the drive... I suspect it was a 
faulty return.... Grrrrrr), I have found myself being amused with
the capabilities of my machine.
	My main gripe, besides the fact that there's literally no
software available, is that I can't get the AbasiC to operate in
other than a 40 column mode.  Is it possible to get an 80 column
mode out of it, or must I junk it and replace it with a "Real" 
language when one comes out (is the assembler available yet???).
If anyone knows (Commodore, are you listening???), could you please
post a response?  I'm sure if there is a way to do it, it must be
in the mysterious "Amiga User Manual", which of course no Joe User
has access to.
	I also have a pre-release of Textcraft.  I realize that 
what I have isn't the final product, but will the final version
allow you to continue with other jobs while one is printing???  It
seems rather useless to have a Multitasking machine if one can't do
multiple jobs (even if one is a print job).  Perhaps Mr. Commodore
could answer this one to?
	Well, Thanks for listening!


		Warren Kring
		Boeing Aerospace Co.
		Seattle, Wa


<<<<<The above comments are in no way to be confused with any
     thought of mine (I have none) nor to be connected in any way to
     my employer.... my cat made me do it>>>>

warren@ssc-vax.UUCP (Warren Kring) (11/22/85)

> 	My main gripe, besides the fact that there's literally no
> software available, is that I can't get the AbasiC to operate in
> other than a 40 column mode.  Is it possible to get an 80 column
> mode out of it, or must I junk it and replace it with a "Real" 
> language when one comes out (is the assembler available yet???).
> If anyone knows (Commodore, are you listening???), could you please
> post a response?  I'm sure if there is a way to do it, it must be
> in the mysterious "Amiga User Manual", which of course no Joe User
> has access to.
 
 Well, I found out the answer to my own question last night.  Most
 of you may already know the answer to the 80 column Abasic question
 I posted earlier, but for those of you who don't... here goes.
	In order to have 80 column text, you need to put the screen
 hi-res mode.  This can be done simply by using the screen command
 (mentioned in the Abasic manual) "Screen 1,4,0".  This will put you
 in high-res mode as long as the font has not been changed (see the
 font command--default is 40 in low res, 80 in hi res).
	Personnally, I would much prefer to have the default be 80
 columns, since this would be much easier to read.  Hey commodore,
 is this an unreasonable request for an upcoming release???
 I've also heard a rumor that Abasic will be replaced by Microsoft
 basic.  Is this true, or should it just remain a rumor?
	Another question I have (one which could certainly be
 answered by the user's guide which I can't get yet) is the
 difficulty I've had with saving my basic files in a different
 directory than the top-level directory.  There are no icons to move
 (or if there are, I haven't found them) and I can't seem to rename
 them to another directory like one would do on a Vax.  Any help
 would be appreciated!

	Warren Kring
	Boeing Aerospace Co.
	Seattle, Wa

bruceb@amiga.UUCP (Bruce Barrett) (11/23/85)

In article <376@ssc-vax.UUCP> warren@ssc-vax.UUCP (Warren Kring) writes:
>Hello world!
>	My main gripe, besides the fact that there's literally no
>software available, is that I can't get the AbasiC to operate in
>other than a 40 column mode.  Is it possible to get an 80 column
>mode out of it...

From Commodore-Amiga (The Gripe busters!):

	Yes, set your Preferences to 80 and use the ABasiC command:

	SCREEN 1,2,0     -- or --	SCREEN 1,3,0

When you first come up.  This command IS documented, see page R-151
of the ABasiC manual.  Parameters are:
	1st - mode, 1=highres, 0=lowres
	2nd - depth (# of bit-planes) 1=2 colors, 2=4 colors, 3=8 colors,...
	3rd - top of screen (# of scan lines from the top)

I do note that this is in the "File Management Commands" section so I
had a little trouble looking it up.  (And I knew I needed the SCREEN
command)  I first tried "graphics", then "I/O" commands.  Found it by
using the command summary in the back of the book.  Oh well...

>	I also have a pre-release of Textcraft.  I realize that 
>what I have isn't the final product, but will the final version
>allow you to continue with other jobs while one is printing???  It
>seems rather useless to have a Multitasking machine if one can't do
>multiple jobs (even if one is a print job).  Perhaps Mr. Commodore
>could answer this one to?

First of all I'll put on my "big bad police man's" hat and say "What
are you doing with a product that: ((keep  :-)ing  please! ))
	a) will be sold (not a give away with the machine)  and
	b) had only be released in a dealer demo version."
My understanding (and I could be wrong) is that Textcraft was sent to
dealers so that they could demo machines, not give an unreleased 
product away.

Anyway, that aside, you are right to note that TC does not "print-spool"
and that all indications are that the Amiga could handle this.  The answers
are:

	1) Just because a machine multi tasks doesn't mean that you (the 
		developer, Arktronics in this case) has to.
	2) Textcraft is meant as an "entry level" word processor.  Not a
		*high-powered* business tool.  Yes, there are some and
		will be other businesses that can use TC.  That is not
		the stated market for THIS product.
	3) *IF* you had lots of memory and *IF* Arktronics had allowed 
		you to use the Amiga-M and Amiga-N keys to get back and
		forth to the workbench screen and *IF* Textcraft ran in a 
		machine with more than 512k of memory and *IF* your
		document(s) was(were) small enough to fit in memory, 
		TWICE  -- *THEN* -- you could run 2 copies of Textcraft,
		printing in one and editing in the other.  ED in the
		CLI, for example will do this.  ED, however, will not
		do many of the other things TC does.

The released 1.0 version of Textcraft will continue to print in this way.
I do not know (and probably couldn't say) when the next rev will be out
and what features it has.  If you want to start a "card and letter" campaign
please either direct it to Arktronics or get in touch with me and I'll 
try to determine if it is us (C/A) or they you should lobby.

Hope that helps!

Bruce Barrett


PS:
>		Boeing Aerospace Co.
		^^^^^^ I like your planes.

PPS:
	Amiga and Textcraft are trademarks of Commodore-Amiga, Inc.

kim@mips.UUCP (Kim DeVaughn) (11/23/85)

> 	My main gripe, besides the fact that there's literally no
> software available, is that I can't get the AbasiC to operate in
> other than a 40 column mode.  Is it possible to get an 80 column
> mode out of it, or must I junk it and replace it with a "Real" 
> language when one comes out (is the assembler available yet???).


I had the same "gripe" Warren, but a friend of mine who had had his
machine for a couple of days longer came thru.  Here's the trick:

	When ABasiC comes up type "screen 1,4,0".  The screen will
	flash a bit, then lo and behold ... 80 columns.  The screen
	function is described on pages 151-152 of the ABasiC manual.

BTW, the default mode is not "1,4,0" as page 152 says;  it's "0,?,0"
the low-resolution mode (the ?-mark is because I haven't really *tested*
the number of planes that it defaults to).  Also, "1,5,0" won't work as
that specifies high-res mode, with 5 planes (32 colors);  the Amiga can't
normally do this.  It would be nice if ABasiC were fixed to respect the
setting given in Preferences (and how about for screen colors, as well)!


Another one *I* had trouble with was getting OUT of ABasiC without
doing a reset.  I tried EXIT, QUIT, STOP, END, LEAVE, BYE, DIE, every
Cntl-Char, and a few words I can't use on the net.  Then I stumbled
upon page R-154;  "of course you type SYSTEM", I exclaimed, "just like
in APL" ... naturally!

Maybe this is a common way to get out of a BASIC interpreter, but I've
never used BASIC before  (I prefer Assembler, but then what do you
expect from someone in H/W Diagnostics? :-) )   One thing I feel pretty
strongly about is telling a user how to terminate an application in
the same paragraph or section as you told her how to get into it ... not
151 pages later (the manual tells you how to bring up ABasiC on page R-3,
and I didn't see SYSTEM referenced until R-154 though I suppose I could
have missed it).


Here's a tidbit I stumbled upon by chance ... haven't seen it documented
either:  

	The friend I mentioned above wrote a quick-and-dirty Mandelbrot
	program to get a feel for the graphics capability and computational
	power of the Amiga.  His Amiga is currently hooked up to a TV set,
	as his dealer was short of monitors.  He coded the program so that
	it would give him a nice display on the TV set, but on my 1080
	monitor, it ended up being about 2"x 6" in size (80 col mode).

	"Well", I says to myself, "here's a chance to play with ABasiC".
	After *finally* getting a listing of his code out (the way to do
	this is documented on page 172, but check the errata sheets BEFORE
	you spend an hour trying to get it to work), and hacking on it a
	bit, I get it up and it seems to be running.  Since all the floating
	point is done in s/w, it's a pretty slooow program;  but not to
	worry, the Amiga is a multi-tasking machine ... we'll just flip
	ABasiC into the background and go off and do something else while
	it's running.  Up to the Back Gadget and click.  Click.  Click!
	CLICK!  The screen does not change.  Try pulling down the screen ...
	nope, won't budge.  Well, lessee, maybe it'll pull down if I make the
	ABasiC window smaller.  Down to the Sizing Gadget, size the window;
	up to the Drag Bar and pull.  Ah ha!  The ABasiC window bar was on
	top of the ABasiC screen bar.  Now we'll get to the correct Back
	Gadget ... click.  CLICK!!!!!  The screen does not change.  Try
	dragging the ABasiC *screen* down now that its exposed ... no dice.
	Now I *know* I've seen ABasiC and Workbench up together .... begin
	searching thru the manual ... yep, there it is on page 4-27 of
	Introduction to Amiga.  What's this about shortcuts ... Amiga-M ...
	nothing happens.  I remember reading someplace about Amiga-N ...
	nada!  Back to the manuals.  About this time, the Mandelbrot program
	does something bad ... Guru Meditation time.
	
	Later.  I think I've fixed my error in the Mandelbrot code and
	have it running again.  I try going thru some semblance of the
	above procedure, Desperately Seeking Workbench.  Lo and behold,
	when I try dragging down the ABasiC *screen's* Drag Bar (after
	getting it out from underneath ABasiC's window Drag Bar) ...
	THERE IS THE WORKBENCH!
	
	OK, so what's different?  The clock is sitting there ticking
	away, and ... wait a minute!  I brought no clock up last time ...
	just went straight into ABasiC.  CLOCK?  NO CLOCK?  Come on, let's
	get serious ... what can that have to do with it?  But it does.
	WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

	It seems that if you want to be able to foreground or
	background the "main" screen (i.e., the Workbench), something
	has to be "happening" on it, and the clock will do the trick ...
	perhaps they use it for "time-slicing"  (sorry, I just couldn't
	resist :-) ).
	
	Now I've been able to get two ABasiC's up at once.  Three, and I get
	a "Can't open window" Requester, which if I click and then try to move
	one of the ABasiC's Drag Bar ends up giving me Guru Meditation
	#00000003.000027A2.  Oh well, this is release 1.0, right?  Right!


I'm sorry the above narration is so long (doubly so if this is "common
knowledge"), but I wanted to make a point.

For myself, I enjoy debugging new machines, and I get paid to do just
that;  it's more fun to me than Hack or Rogue or whatever.  But, if people
who are relatively familier with computers, and who are used to working on
"Beta" level machines with incomplete documentation have these kinds of
experiences, what will happen to the really naive users in the offices and
schools and so forth?  You know, the people of "The Marketplace";  the ones
who ultimately decide whether a product is successful or not.

The Amiga is a really GREAT machine, with tremendous potential.  AmigaDOS
Rev 1.0 has a LOT of holes, and some serious oversights in documentation
of FUNDEMENTAL operations, in my opinion.  Rev 1.1 is supposed to be out
"next week" I'm told.  I really hope to see a significant improvement in
the system, and the documentation, but being somewhat cynical  (working
in Diagnostics will do that to you), I'd bet that the system won't be
"clean" until about Rev 1.6 or so.

There's one other thing I noticed while working with ABasiC that I'd like
to see "fixed".  The Front and Back Gadgets are in the "standard" places
(i.e., the same as Workbench), but their iconic representation seems
"backwards" to me.  In Workbench, the Front Gadget is represented by a
white square on top of a black square and vice-versa for the  Back Gadget;
in ABasiC, Front is blue/black on white and Back is white on blue/black.
The white tends to dominate in the gadgets, visually, and tends to become
associated with "this window/screen";  thus making ABasiC's representation
seem backwards (to me, anyway).

I bring this up because *consistency* in the user interface (particularly
in iconic systems) is the key to effortless use.  I realize ABasiC was
developed by a third party, but I hope it will seem more consistent with
the rest of the bundled s/w in future releases.

Also, I hope Commodore-Amiga is *encouraging* all 3rd party ISV's to be
consistent in their basic interfaces.  (Is there a "suggested standard
interface"?  I've not seen one in the technical documentation that my dealer
lets me make notes from.)


Finally, if you're still with me, you deserve a cookie ... here's something
else that's not mentioned in the bundled documentation.  Didja know that
there is a full-screen editor in Amiga ... and a line-editor?  Yep, there
surely are!  For the full-screen editor, just go into CLI, and type
ED <filename>.  Bingo!  For the line-editor, you type EDIT <filename>
(my short experiance with the *line-editor* is that <filename> must already
exist, else you get an error).  The commands for ED were posted to the
net some time ago in a reference-card form;  at the time, I thought they
were for the ABasiC editor.  If anyone wants a copy, I'll be happy to
e-mail it to them.  I don't have the commands for the line-editor ("q"
actually "quits" it though).

To see most (all?) of the CLI commands, enter "dir :c" from CLI.  In AmigaDOS,
":" means "root";  "cd /" is equivalent to "cd .." in UNIX(tm).  Enter a
command followed by a "?" to see the command-syntax.


Hoping my Developer's Kit with the *real* documentation gets here SOON!

/kim


P.S.  I attended a demo by Electronic Arts on their upcoming s/w.
      WOW!  I was particularly impressed with Professional Graphics.
      It's supposed to be released the 1st week in December, and is
      supposed to retail at $89.95.  They're waiting for the release
      of AmigaDOS Rev 1.1 to happen first ... tho the demo was run on
      Rev 1.0 without problems.


"Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get."  --  Lazarus Long
-- 

UUCP:  {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!mips!kim
DDD:   415-960-1200
USPS:  MIPS Computer Systems Inc,  1330 Charleston Rd,  Mt View, CA 94043

french@caip.RUTGERS.EDU (11/24/85)

From: "french robert%d.mfenet"@LLL-MFE.ARPA

AbasiC can be placed into an 80-column mode by using the SCREEN command
described on page R-151 of the AbasiC manual.  It's format is:
    SCREEN <mode%>,<depth%>,<top%>
mode% is 0 for 320 pixels/line (40 col), 1 for 640 (80 col).
depth% is the number of bit planes you would like (1-4).
top% is supposedly the top line of the screen.
For example, I usually use "SCREEN 1,4,0" which gives me an 80-column,
16 color screen.

BTW, anybody know how to make the text in different colors?

                 Robert French
                 "French Robert%d"@LLL-MFE.ARPA

liebert@sjuvax.UUCP (liebert) (11/25/85)

> I've also heard a rumor that Abasic will be replaced by Microsoft
> basic. Is this true?...

Yes this is definately true (and there was much rejoicing) and I have seen
it and worked with it. Like their basic for the MAC, there is a seperate
window for the listing which allows you on-screen editing (cutting, pasting
etc.), good sound/graphics support, mouse support, windows and most of the
stuff that ABasiC offers and then some. It is a more structured basic (no
need for line numbers) and uses labels. Most of the non-Amiga-specific looks
like standard Microsoft stuff. Other neat things include the error detection
routine which, when it finds an error in your code, pulls up the listing
window with a red box around the offending error. All we need is a compiler
and basic could be tolerable :-)

			      Peter Liebert      
			      Saint Joseph's University      
			      Philadelphia, PA      
                        {allegra | astrovax | bpa | burdvax}!sjuvax!liebert

DEC.BANKS@MARLBORO.DEC.COM (11/25/85)

From: Dawn Banks <DEC.BANKS@MARLBORO.DEC.COM>

   A couple of points here about ABasiC:

First, "Screen 1,4,0" does get you into hi res (therefore 80 column) mode. It
also gives you 4 bit planes worth of graphics, which as previous mail on this
list has shown steals lots of cycles.  The machine can run a lot faster if
you only use two bit planes ("Screen 1,2,0").

Secondly, in re getting the workbench screen back while running Basic stuff:
We've also burned off a lot of computes doing Mandelbrot zooming.  Aside from
being able to do something else with the machine while it's zooming, it may
also run faster if you're using hi res 4 bit plane graphics (as above), since
the workbench screen only uses 2 planes.

We've done a little more research as to when you can and can't get the 
workbench screen.  As we've not gotten our developer's kit yet (listening
Amiga????), excuse the clumsy terminology, as we've only an emperical idea
of what's happening here:  If you get to the CLI, and say "ABASIC" to run
basic (after setting stack to 8000, of course), the CLI doesn't accept
anymore commands until ABasiC exits.  WHen this is the case, it's terribly
difficult to get the Workbench/CLI screen back, and once you do, the CLI isn't
going to accept anything.  If, on the other hand, you initiate ABasiC with
"RUN ABasiC", the CLI will continute to accept commands, and the screen
selection gadgets on the ABasiC screen suddenly start working like they're 
supposed to.  I guess the deal here is that it doesn't readily give you the
old Workbench screen back if there's no one there to talk to.  Running the
clock program definitely gives you someone to talk to, so no problems.  Giving
the shell command "NewCLI" (is that it? I've renamed mine already) will also
spawn a new CLI in the workbench screen.

As a last point for MandelHackers: As I've mentioned, it's a good idea to 
"bury" the ABasiC screen under something that steals cycles less if you're
computing to 4 bit plane hi res.  The only problem with that is that you don't
know the progress of the program if you can't see it.  This is easily solved
by openning a window on the Workbench screen, and displaying the progress.
This can be done by openning "CON:0/10/100/20/Mandelbrot", then outputting
the progress to it, say every line like "Print #1, CHR$(27);"[HCurrent line:";
ScreenY%;"

We've got the inner loop hand coded in assembler, callable from an ABasiC
program.  This speeds up computation by a factor of 25 or more.  If there's
any interest, I can make the source (Basic DATA statements, 'cause we STILL 
DON'T HAVE OUR DEVELOPER'S KIT) available.
   --------

js@uw-june (Joe Meadows) (11/26/85)

	In regards to changing the text color, note the two commands
	ASK RGB register,red,green,blue (R-99) and
	RGB register,red,green,blue (R-119)

	register 0 = background screen color
	register 1 = Text color, plus parts of the menu gadgets,
	register 2 = most of the window border,
	register 15 = Block cursor

	Other things of possible interest:
	CHDIR "file-spec" (in the errata sheet) changes your default directory.
	Note however that this doesn't affect commands like DIR, or SHELL,
	which will still refer to the directory you were in when you entered
	basic (at least, I think thats it...)

	For fun I played with the LIBCALL (R-147) function, after
	hand-assembling some 68k code (bleah,choke,gag, where's my development
	kit?!) shoving the assembled code into DATA statements, READing them
	into an array and then using VARPTR to find their address... Pain
	city! (aside, Integers are Longwords (32 bit))
	 For those of you crazy enough to try it :
	LIBCALL <pointer%>, <index%>, <array%>
	where pointer% is either the address of the routine, or a "library
	base pointer", index% is an index into the library (0% for a routine)
	and array% is an array of 16 cells to hold registers D0-D7 followed
	by A0-A7. They give an example in the book using the system variable
	EXECBASE (a pointer to the system Exec library). Apparently your
	on your own to figure out what offsets do what.. If there's any
	interest (You mean, someone might want to Do something from Basic?)
	let me know and after I get my books I'll try and post some more info
	concerning this..

	Personnaly I can't wait for the day companies start shipping their
	computers with a real language, and with real documentation..

	Just another waiting person..
	joe (mr. cheers) meadows.
Cheers

stroyan@hpfcla.UUCP (11/30/85)

> BTW, anybody know how to make the text in different colors?

The "graphics 1" command has the undocumented effect of making future
"print" statements write text in the current pena color.  It doesn't
change text color for other commands.  In fact, the "print" text and other
text have independent cursor positions.

Mike Stroyan, hpfcla!stroyan

warren@ssc-vax.UUCP (Warren Kring) (12/02/85)

> >	I also have a pre-release of Textcraft.  I realize that 
> >what I have isn't the final product, but will the final version
> >allow you to continue with other jobs while one is printing???  It
> >seems rather useless to have a Multitasking machine if one can't do
> >multiple jobs (even if one is a print job).  Perhaps Mr. Commodore
> >could answer this one to?
> 
> First of all I'll put on my "big bad police man's" hat and say "What
> are you doing with a product that: ((keep  :-)ing  please! ))
> 	a) will be sold (not a give away with the machine)  and
> 	b) had only be released in a dealer demo version."
> My understanding (and I could be wrong) is that Textcraft was sent to
> dealers so that they could demo machines, not give an unreleased 
> product away.
>
> 	Amiga and Textcraft are trademarks of Commodore-Amiga, Inc.

First of all, thanks to everyone for all the info on the Basic 80
column question I posted earlier.

Secondly, I just thought I'd let Commodore know how I got the
Textcraft demo.  As you all know... There is virtually no software
available for the Amiga (at least not in the Seattle area...).  My
dealer said I could get the demo if I prepaid for the real thing.  I
certainly hope this isn't illegal, because it seems everyone is
doing it.  

Anyway, thanks for the info, Commodore.  Keep it up!

Warren Kring
Boeing Aerospace Co. 
Seattle, Wa

"My comments are my own and are not to be connected in any way with
my employer..."