jdf@pbhyc.UUCP (Jack Fine) (04/17/87)
Let me preface this with a comment that even though I have used many different computers (micros and up) I do not have much apple experience and am finding the new //gs I have considerably different from much of what I am used to. I keep running into things I don't understand and then find I can't locate information about it in the reference books that came with the machine. Which brings me to my first question: 1. When I hit a certain series of keys it drops me into an assembler monitor. How do I go about learning what commands the monitor understands? I have done some experimenting but this is rough at best. Would like a good reference source. A good tech manual would be nice. Does anyone know how to get one? The same is true for Applesoft(is this basic really as weak and archaic as it appears?) as well. Speaking of programming, what is the best language to get for the //gs? I like pascal basic is okay and have been trying to learn C. But which ever I get I would want it to be able to compile. Of course it should take advantage of the newer //gs features. 2. I just installed a AE gsram card and have a question or two about this. First, I have found that when I installed a ramdisk the ramdisk became slot 5-2. I have two 3.5 inch drives and they were 5-1 and 5-2. Now my second 3.5 inch drive is 2-1. Why would it do that? I have had the Ramdisk lock up on me a couple of times when I was playing around with dos and putting files in the ramdisk. Not sure why that is happening. And last, when I copied all of the dos files to ramdisk set the control panel to start from the ramdisk then reset the machine it came up saying error with startup device. Can't you run dos from ramdisk? Thanks for any info.. Jack
nick@drune.UUCP (SilvaNT) (04/20/87)
>1. When I hit a certain series of keys it drops me into an assembler >monitor. How do I go about learning what commands the monitor >understands? I have done some experimenting but this is rough at best. >Would like a good reference source. A good tech manual would be nice. >Does anyone know how to get one? The same is true for Applesoft(is this >basic really as weak and archaic as it appears?) as well. Speaking of >programming, what is the best language to get for the //gs? I like pascal >basic is okay and have been trying to learn C. But which ever I get I >would want it to be able to compile. Of course it should take advantage of >the newer //gs features. While the monitor commands are similar to those of the old mini-assembler there are some differences for 16 bit mode and there are some new commands. At this time the only source of information on the monitor is found in the //gs Firmware Reference manual (not yet released but available in draft form to APDA members). Applesoft has been around for a while, so you should be able to find a (many) manuals at any bookstore. As for languages, the 'official' languages will be 'C' or 65816 assembly running under APW, but there are already two native code Pascal compilers availabe (even before apple C) and a BASIC compiler. To my knowlede, only TML pascal takes advantage of the GS's toolbox calls. >2. I just installed a AE gsram card and have a question or two about this. >First, I have found that when I installed a ramdisk the ramdisk became slot >5-2. I have two 3.5 inch drives and they were 5-1 and 5-2. Now my second >3.5 inch drive is 2-1. Why would it do that? The explanation for this could also be found in the GS firmware ref. manual. >I have had the Ramdisk lock >up on me a couple of times when I was playing around with dos and putting >files in the ramdisk. Not sure why that is happening. And last, when I >copied all of the dos files to ramdisk set the control panel to start from >the ramdisk then reset the machine it came up saying error with startup >device. Can't you run dos from ramdisk? First, if by dos you mean dos 3.3, it won't work. If Prodos, first make sure you have formated the ramdisk, and that you include Prodos and possibly a Startup file on the ramdisk. Nick Silva AT&T-IS ============================================================================ Disclaimer: My opinions are my own, the company doesn't pay me enough to give those away too! ===========================================================================
ranger@ecsvax.UUCP (Rick N. Fincher) (04/22/87)
Jack, The Apple tech manuals are not out yet. For a good all purpose manual try the Apple //gs Technical Reference by Fischer, published by McGraw- Hill. It will help you with the monitor commands and explain a few other things as well. The slot numbers change on your drives because Prodos is set up to have two drives per slot. Although the drives don't use slot 2, they are named for slot two because that's where some extra names are located. Prodos 16 won't be this limited, when the final version is out. You can boot from your Ram disk but the file PRODOS must be in it along with a program of type SYS with a name ending in .SYSTEM (this is for Prodos 8). The Fischer book will explain more about the boot process for Prodos 8 and Prodos 16. There are two Pascals that I know of for the new features of the //gs, TML Pascal and Kyan Pascal. They are advertised in A+ and other Apple magazines. Apple is working on a C compiler, but production versions are not available yet. Some of the compilers require APW, the Apple Programmers Workshop. This is a development environment that includes a 65816 assembler and linker. The linker and assembler are needed for some of these systems, check before you buy. Rick Fincher ranger@ecsvax