Hi Will,
Too many times I've made some changes and either accidentally deleted the file
or messed it up so badly that I want to revert to the previous version, so I've
learned the hard way that it's a good idea to save the work before making major
changes.
One way is to SAVE it locally on the M100 as a .DO file ("Foo.do" or "Foo",A) ,
changing the name as appropriate; note that BASIC will save a file as .BA by
default but will LOAD a .DO file without specifying the '.DO' or ',A' if no .BA
file with the same file exists. Of course if it's a very large file you may not
have room for both the .BA and .DO files in RAM at the same time.
What I do if I'm close enough to a PC to easily connect or stay connected is to
open a file (e.g. "backup.txt") on the PC for ASCII text download with a
terminal program and just leave it open.
On the M100 I've programmed F7 to 'Key 7, "COM:88N1E"', so when I want to save
the file I'm working on I press F3 to save, F7 in response to 'Save "' and
Return. It's a good idea to embed a version no. in the program and update it
every time.
This concatenates all the saved files in one file; if you actually need to go
back then you'd have to stop the transfer, edit the file on the PC and send it
back to the M100. Of course you can open a new file on the PC every time if you
don't mind typing on the PC every time.
To Load a .DO file from the PC, open TEXT, enter the File name, LOAD (F2) and
enter 'COM:88N1E' in response to 'Load from:'; on the PC terminal program
select Upload ASCII or whatever it's called and the file name (which does not
have to be the same as on the M100). You may not see anything happening but the
terminal program should indicate somehow when the transfer is finished. Type a
CTL-Z on the PC and the file should appear on the M100; switch to BASIC and
Load it, and Bob's your mother's brother.
This is mainly meant for folks who want to or have to just use the M100's
built-in functions, and to show how to avoid overruns when Loading BASIC .DO
programs as in a previous post here a few days ago.
Teeny, TS-DOS etc. certainly are very useful and in fact necessary if you're
working with .BA tokenized files or Machine language code.
Other than my phone I'm not an Apple kind of guy, so I can't give any
Mac-specific hints.
One other hint: to simplify switching from RUN to EDIT mode I've programmed
'F6,"Edit"+chr$(13)'
Not too verbose, I hope...
m
----- Original Message -----
From: Will Senn
To: m100@lists.bitchin100.com
Sent: Saturday, October 29, 2022 10:16 AM
Subject: Re: [M100] Notoriously S.L.O.W BASIC posted - help speeding it up
appreciated
Hi Mike,
I'm curious about the COM stuff. In a later note you said:
It's actually sorta been fun programming on the 'real' M100; I left a
download running on the PC and every time I wanted to backup an interim version
just in case, I just pressed F3 and F7 (which I'd programmed with the COM
stats).
and here, you say stuff about programming the function keys with
"COM:88N1E"...
It would be nice to be able to transfer / save from BASIC and/or my terminal
on the Mac without the overhead of dl/TEENY.CO. I know enough to be dangerous
and that the keys can easily be programmed to effectively type stuff. I'm just
not clear on is how this works mechanically. Are you in BASIC, typing away,
having just fixed some bit and are ready to SAVE it remotely, so you press F3
and voila, it just does it, or do you press F3 and then do something to get it
transferring, or what?
I have the cables hooked up and usually, I:
1. SAVE from BASIC to .DO or .BA
2. Start up DL on the Mac side, if it isn't already running in my ~/m100
directory
3. Press F8 to get menu
4. Select TEENY.CO
5. Type S HEXIT .DO
6. Watch it complete without error (so long as HEXIT.DO doesn't already
exist, I think)
What I'm imagining happen is:
1. SAVE from BASIC to .DO or .BA
2. Press F3
3. Magically a file is sent and received on the Mac (where does it's name
come from?)
4. Celebration
or
1. F2 from BASIC
2. Start sending a file (how?) from the Mac
3. Celebration
Just curious!
Will
On 10/28/22 12:30 PM, MikeS wrote:
Yeah, that's a setup I used for a while, sort of a poor man's
tablet/clamshell 'convertible. ;-) No problem extending the cable to around 2
feet.
Never did use the disk drives very much although I did install a second
one; even today while playing with Will's dump program it's so simple to plug
in the cable to the PC, select download or upload on the PC and either BASIC F3
(SAVE) to com: or TEXT F2 (LOAD) from com:, not to mention being able to print
on the PC and send/receive over the Internet.
Question for the experts: I have "COM:88N1E" stored in one of the BASIC
function keys; I don't suppose there's a way to do that for TEXT?
Back in the day IIRC the DVI and the M100 were both around $800; probably
still have the receipts somewhere; don't know what that'd be today..
And yes, the Model T and NEC BASICs are remarkably versatile, especially
considering the size constraints.
Definitely unique and, I don't know, friendly in a way...
m
----- Original Message -----
From: B 9
To: m...@bitchin100.com
Sent: Friday, October 28, 2022 12:39 AM
Subject: Re: [M100] Notoriously S.L.O.W BASIC posted - help speeding it
up appreciated
On Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 8:51 AM MikeS <dm...@torfree.net> wrote:
It might not be so bad on a 200 but my main annoyance is having to
scroll up and down on the M100's 8 line screen; as a matter of fact the larger
screen was the main reason I bought a DVI when they came out.
When they came out? I wonder if they were more expensive when they were
new or now that they are rare and "vintage". Is that a picture of your
Disk/Video Interface setup? Looks nifty!
For a lot of stuff in the old days I actually used GWBASIC or TBASIC
to program on a PC; except for screen printing and graphics they're almost
completely compatible and with a few conditional lines many programs could be
run and tested on both the PC and the M100.
There's something I didn't know! I've been surprised at how capable the
Model T's 8-bit BASIC is. Was it the last one Microsoft made? Given what I had
expected after seeing the Apple ][ and C64, it's quite a bit more advanced.
(For example, ON COM GOSUB). And I read that the NEC 8201A version of the DVI
allowed not only color graphics, but extended the BASIC language with graphics
commands that I think may be from GW-BASIC.
I can understand that some folks want to relive the total experience
of doing everything on the old hardware [...]
Sure, and there's nothing wrong with reliving the past. But, that's not
me. I didn't get to experience the M100 when it was current. This is my first
time around with this technology, so part of the fun is trying to see what it
was like back then. I know, it's sort of like people who go camping for a week
to get in touch with their primitive hunter-gatherer ancestors. Not likely to
be terribly accurate, but still, it's fun.
Nevertheless, for just noodling around while relaxing on the couch not
much can beat the M100.
I'm beginning to learn that! I still haven't got a true Model 100. I only
have a Tandy 200 because my neighbor was throwing it away and wondered if I
could use "an old laptop". I had no idea what it was. But, given my
experiences so far, maybe I should look into getting the real thing some day.
—b9
