[ColorForth] first steps

["t" <loveall@xxxxxxxxx>]

Friends,

Chuck's original colorForth, the modified DMA with time delay and his latest
release work on a range of different machines. Because the latest revision
does not work on some machines on which the initial/modified version did, I
am making the initial modified version available along with the July 31
modifications.

The modified versions (800x600 video) of the original and the latest, can be
found on my web site
http://www.users.qwest.net/~loveall/ModProg.htm
in zip format. Included is build batch file, MASM source, MASM source
listing, bare color.com, complete c4.com with correct blocks, seperate
color.blk and readme.txt with technical details.

If you send me a comparable zip file, with further modifications, I will
post the zip on my web site. Please include your email address in any
modified source and technical documentation for support purposes. I cannot
provide tech support for other peoples changes, but do wish to provide a
central point for significant mods. My system is limited to 800x600 video.

Chuck revised the kernel and source blocks between his initial release and
his latest July 31 release. The following comments are mainly relevant for
those who wish to work with the MASM kernel source.

He rewrote floppy I/O to include a time delay and omit hardware DMA, and
consolidated some changes (but not all) to aid using a different video
resolution. My video modifications include the complete changes for the
assembler source but not for the source blocks. Source block video
resolution changes need to be made after a floppy image is successfully
working.

He also changed the location of 'Icon' character display table, but forgot
to change the org statement which sets the length of the MASM generated
color.com. This is reflected in a changed structure to the blocks appended
to the end of his published color.com
ftp://ftp.ultratechnology.com/COLOR.COM
Because of these changes color.blk must be matched to the proper kernel.

Regards,
Terry Loveall

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jecel Assumpcao Jr" <jecel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "ColorForth List Member" <ColorForth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 2:13 PM
Subject: [ColorForth] first steps


> Thanks for sharing, Bernd.
>
> I was able to make sense of your wave player block using a binary
> editor and the tables from Chuck's site, but was not so lucky with the
> file Color.blk included in the patched Color Forth .zip file (I have
> forgotten where I got that from). I thought its first 1K bytes would be
> block 24, but it has a bunch of zero words in the beginning and then
> what would be a strangely named red word (?w,? or something like that).
> The very next word is type F, so I gave up.
>
> Your code confirmed that I had understood the binary format correctly.
>
> Doh! Stupid me - I should have looked at word 6000h in the original
> color.com, right? I just did and it is totally different from color.blk!
>
> -- Jecel
> P.S.: I decided to work on a Color Forth-like language (called Final -
> the Fun INterActive Language) instead of pure Color Forth. Some details
> are available at http://www.merlintec.com:8080/software/

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