OBRIEN%OBRIEN@VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU ("James A. O'Brien 432-4382", 203) (11/02/88)
Turbo Pascal Update - V5.0
--------------------------
Although I received my upgrade to TP5 a couple of weeks ago, I only got
around to installing it this weekend on my Rainbow. In summary, the command
line version works on a Rainbow (just like TP4) but not the integrated
environment. No, not even under Code Blue - TP accesses PC keyboard hardware
directly.
Not wanting to throw away my working TP4 setup until I was sure TP5 worked,
I played around with some programs. Most everything worked - except my
own GRAPH unit, which went crazy! Much effort and bad language later, I traced
it to the $F directive in the code. If you have my GRAPH and CRT units,
and you want to use them under TP5, a slight change is necessary. First,
remove the {$F+} and {$F-} directives that surround the procedure MYEXIT.
Then, put a {$F+} at the top of the GRAPH.PAS file. Then, you're set.
Incidentally, the changed file will still work correctly under TP4.
I'm going to mail an updated version to the INFO-DEC-MICRO library as soon as
I've also added features to mimic the new ones in Borland's TP5 GRAPH unit.
However, don't hold your breath . . .!
TP5 has overlays as its main new addition - I've not tried them, but they
might just come in very useful. Also, it now produces emulated 8087 code
for machines that don't have a math coprocessor. I've also noticed it seems
to generate faster code - e.g. some graphics stuff I've been playing with
seems to go about a factor of 1.5 to 2 faster.
I don't have the stuff in front of me right now, but I believe you can upgrade
to TP5 for about $50 as long as you do it before December. I think it's
worth it. Wow - I've got the manuals for TP2, 3, 4, and 5 on my shelf,
now!!
Attention TeX Users
-------------------
If you want to use TeX on your Rainbow, this may be of interest to you. Any of
the available TeXs will run on a Rainbow, as they are vanilla MS-DOS programs.
However, no-one had written a previewer to allow you to see the output on
the screen of a Rainbow for proofreading. I contacted Wayne Sullivan in
Ireland (he wrote the CDVI previewer programs for various PC graphics boards
- the code is in Turbo Pascal 3.0). While he wouldn't release his source code,
he told me what kind of a graphics routine would be needed to get graphics
output. I wrote such a Rainbow-specific routine, shipped
it to him, and he incorporated it into a new version, CDVIRB. CDVIRB is
a version of CDVI V1.2 which will preview TeX .DVI files on a Rainbow.
It needs Code Blue to run, as it would have been too much work to make the
changes long-distance otherwise i.e. Wayne changed only the graphics portion
of the program, not the keyboard and text screen stuff. However, it works!
It's a provisional version, and it doesn't paint the graphics screen as
quickly as I'd like, but it's quite serviceable. I hope to give Wayne faster
code sometime in the near future, but I can't promise when. If you're
interested in receiving a copy of CDVIRB, let me know directly. As you
might expect, neither Wayne nor I will assume any responsibility for any
consequences (including, but not limited to, hardware damage, software damage,
loss of data) of your using this code. There are lots of Rainbows out there,
many of them gathering dust. I think they'd make fine platforms for word
processing/TeX typesetting, and this utility will help.
Jim O'Brien
Department of Chemical Engineering
Yale University
2159 Yale Station
New Haven, CT 06520, U.S.A.
+1 203 432 4382 (days)
+1 203 322 7222 (eves)
Return Addresses (both equivalent):
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