458 lines
21 KiB
Plaintext
458 lines
21 KiB
Plaintext
America Online
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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
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October 10, 1989 10:00 pm eastern time
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Topic: Assembly Langauge Programming
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Forum Leader: Dave Sugar (AFL Dyfet)
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AFL Dyfet Well, this looks like a very unusual group here tonight :)
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AFA Gary J Unusual?
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AFA Parik we all have humpbacks?
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AFL Dyfet Hey, I think that worm is for us :)
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Doctor Why Did I forget to zip up? :)
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AFL Jack unusual? Do we all snore?
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RosenNeil Hey...Developers ARE unusual!
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Doctor Why (and proud of it)
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AFL Dyfet This is true, Neil :)....Hello KingsX :)
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AFL Marty I resemble that remark!
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AFA Gary J unusually usual.
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AFL Marty as usual
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RosenNeil Is this a usual meeting of the unusual usuals?
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AFL Dyfet Tonight, as the banner says, we will be focusing on Assembly
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Language
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AFL Marty It usually is :)
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AFL Dyfet Programming...I think, for the moment, we will dispense with
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protocol :)
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RosenNeil Which assembler to most people here usually use? Just curious
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AFA Parik clc? adc? wdc? xba! pei. whoops, data overflow
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AFA Gary J Oh no. Usually? :)
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AFL Dyfet I am kinda fond of Merlin 16+ for small projects myself :)...Fast
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to get in,
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Doctor Why someone grab the bit bucket!
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AFL Dyfet fast to code, and fast to get it out the door :)
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Coach101 Myself, ASM65816 Apw
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AFL Dyfet Or call for Fortran Man's sidekick, Billy Bit :)
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AFA Parik orca/m forever.
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AFA Gary J ORCA/M and Merlin here.
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TimY2 I usualllly Orca/M.
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JDavies1 Orca kicks!
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Doctor Why What little I do, I use ORCA/M.
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AFA Parik has anyone checked out lisa? Its pretty cool. VERY VERY VERY
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fast. But its
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AFA Parik interface is a bit awkward. :(
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AFL Dyfet Orca I feel is supperior for LARGE projects :), but for quick and
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dirty things,
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AFA Gary J Merlin's fast too.
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AFL Dyfet I do like Merlin :)
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JDavies1 Is it the same as the old LISA (2.5?) for 6502?
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AFA Parik Lisa is faster. ;)
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AFA Parik Its been improved tremendously JDavies. Its a mousetext based
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editor, desktop
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RosenNeil Hi Phil
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AFL Marty Why do you feel ORCA is superior?
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AFA Parik sorta thing (text though), mouse support, etc.
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AFL Dyfet Lisa is a little combersome to use, and I can't list out their
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source files
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AFL Dyfet with my nifty listing utility :)
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AE PhilM Hi Niel
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AFA Parik It uses less memory and is faster than APW Marty. Its not menu
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based like
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JDavies1 ORCA's desktop is pretty cool.
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AE PhilM (Neil)
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AFA Parik merlin.
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AFA Gary J ORCA or APW is the only way to go if you want to combine multiple
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languages.
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AFL Marty Assuming you don't need to combine multiple languages, is there
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much advantage
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AFL Marty in one over the others?
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RosenNeil Thats what I like about ORCA since I love (ducking) Pascal!
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Coach101 The expandable shell of Orca/Apw are really useful also...
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AFA Gary J I love ducking Pascal too.
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AE PhilM The enviroment.....and partial assemblies are a BIG time saver!
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AFA Parik there are a ton of utilities for apw/orca also.
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AFL Dyfet And you can script and batch assemble/link/everything :)
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Coach101 PASCAL? Is that the "pseudo" language used to train
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programmers?
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AE PhilM With partials I can turn over an 80000 line program in under 2
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minutes.
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RosenNeil Hey...If Pascal is used properly (like I use it), It is a good
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language
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AFA Parik are you using the new linker Phil?
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TimY2 But APW takes up a lot of space in bank 01. Correct?
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AE PhilM Yes
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Coach101 How do you edit an 80,000 line program (it has comments doesn't
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it)?
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AFA Parik Tim - I use orca/m and it doesn't use up any of bank $01, as long
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as my program
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AFA Parik is not a shell base. You must make it s16.
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AE PhilM You need memory and a hard disk to run APW or ORCA effectively.
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TimY2 Ahhhhhh..I see.
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AFA Parik (otherwise the orca/m prodos intercept gets in the way)
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RosenNeil memory is an UNDERSTATEMENT!
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AFA Parik Phil, is the new linker faster or slower for you?
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AE PhilM The program source takes up 3 3.5inch disks and is spread over 60
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files
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AFA Gary J wow
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A GibberFC )bak(
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AE PhilM Faster....If you do basic stuff and dont have a lot of segments.
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AE PhilM MPW/GS is also VERY nice...that is if you dont mind using a MAC
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:))
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Coach101 Howdy Dave...
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RosenNeil Phil......no dirty language in here :)
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Coach101 Phil, do you prefer partial assemblies/compiles (Orca) or
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individual
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Coach101 files (MPW)?
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AE PhilM Im used to both now. I like partials a lot...and I also like
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files. I used
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AE PhilM UNIX in college it's a different way of structuring your source
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code but its
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AE PhilM just that (different) not bad.
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DavidD117 What is out for System v5.0?
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RosenNeil or is 5.0.2 out yet for that matter?
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AFL Dyfet What do you mean, David? In terms of utilities/tools?
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DavidD117 Yes
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Coach101 :)
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AE PhilM We recieved 5.0.2 today....tomorrow we will re-master Vulcans and
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all our
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AE PhilM other stuff and start shipping 5.0.2 !!!
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AFA Parik what? you're not gonna wait for 5.0.3? ;) (just kidding)
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AFL Dyfet Well, there is APW 2.0, with express and Rez edit, Dave :)
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JDavies1 What exactly was wrong woith 5.0?
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AFL Dyfet (I should say Rez compiler and de-compiler, not edit :)
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Coach101 Apw 2.0 is out????
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RosenNeil When will 5.0.2 be available to us?
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AFA Parik will both disks have to be put online, or can it be just the indiv
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files?
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AFL Dyfet Neil, I have not seen the terms of electronic distribution for
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5.0.2 yet, so
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Dave Lyons BTW, Express and Rez are just part of "APW Tools and Interfaces
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Update" or
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AFL Dyfet I do not know myself how soon we can put it up :)
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DavidD117 <--- has problems with downloading for four hours
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Dave Lyons something like that...they work fine with APW 1.0.
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AFL Dyfet OIC, he asked 'OUT' :)
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Coach101 Dave Lyons, to your knowledge is Apw 2.0 available from Apda
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now?
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JDavies1 The disk for Tools and Interfaces cost $50.
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AE PhilM Yes Dave, WHEN CAN WE GET APW 2.0???
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Dave Lyons Nope, APW 2.0 is not available yet.
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AE PhilM Has anyone seen the new disassembler from the Byte Works?
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AFA Parik i've got it. pretty neat!
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AFA Gary J I'd like to see it, it sound pretty neat!
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Coach101 BTW, there are some disagreements between the new tools the Orca
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shell
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Coach101 and compilers....
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AFA Parik It disassembled appleworks GS. LOL
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JDavies1 What's the new disassembler?
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AE PhilM Yeah....its really nice.
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AFA Gary J How is it being marketed? Is it an add-on utility to ORCA/M?
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AFA Parik Its a seperate program for $49.95 (ouch)
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AFA Parik Its written by Paul Elseth.
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AFA Gary J $49.99 list?
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AFA Parik yes.
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AFA Parik the new disassembler is a add on for apw/orca that will
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disassemble any program
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DavidD117 what about copy protection?
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AFA Parik that is a BIN, S16, EXE, and a few others I believe. It works
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great, it has
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JDavies1 Where can it be found?
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RosenNeil They were selling it at AFest....but it had to be mail to you :(
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AFA Parik abilities for scripts, etc. It even has a script for
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disassembling the GS
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AFA Parik roms! I bought it at Applefest (the DOCS had to be mailed to me)
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and it works
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AFA Parik like a charm. david - yes, you can disassemble a copy protected
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program and
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AFA Parik then break the protection using the source.
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AE PhilM Its not copy protected. Any one thought of writting scripts that
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would
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AFA Gary J What
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DavidD117 :)
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AE PhilM disassemble the Apple ROMS :))
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AFA Gary J Oops... what was the going price for it at AppleFest?
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AFL Dyfet Assuming you can bring it into memory and save it as a file, David
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:)
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AFA Gary J (not list, I hope :)
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RosenNeil can you disassemble the disassebler?
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RosenNeil no gary...50% off $25.00
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AE PhilM No the scrip that comes with it for disassembling the ROM is
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pretty lame....I
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AFA Gary J That's what I figured.
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AE PhilM mean REALLY disassemble the ROMS...comments and all :)
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JDavies1 Do you get it from ByteWorks? Or where.
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DavidD117 Does anyone know much about using assembly and the Apple Video
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Overlay Card?
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AFA Parik $25.00. It comes as a desktop version and a shell version. True
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Phil. It
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AFA Parik did put in a lot of garbage. :(
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AFA Gary J each version is $49.95, or do you get both versions?
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AFA Parik I bought it at the byteworks booth at AppleFest Jdavies.
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AFA Parik You get both versions.
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RosenNeil Parik...Do you know if it can disassemble DAs?
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AFA Parik yes it can.
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JDavies1 Thanks Parik
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AFA Gary J Sounds neat.
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AFA Gary J How do you proceed through a disassembly? What steps do you
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take, and
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Doctor Why Parik, when did you get the docs?
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AFA Parik it requires 5.0 by the way.
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AFL Dyfet Dissasembly of 16 bit applications could be very tricky,
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considering all the
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AFA Gary J can you back up the disassembly if you find your getting into
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data?
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Coach101 Did any of the RezEditors make it to market yet?
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AFA Parik I still haven't gotten then Wayne. :( You load a file, and then
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it'll dis it.
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AFL Dyfet ways and places one can switch modes...I would be impressed by a
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product that
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AFL Dyfet could even attempt to handle that well :)
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Doctor Why I'm waiting for them also. :(
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AFA Gary J Merlin's dissasembler can handle the changes as it comes to them,
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but of course
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DavidD117 Has anyone used the Apple Video Overlay Card?
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AFA Gary J there's problems if any modes are switched in a subroutine.
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AFL Dyfet Merlin's dissasembler can handle simple 'linear' situations, but,
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as you just
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Dave Lyons Yup, I have a video overlay & have used it some.
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AFL Dyfet pointed out, it can get lost with a switch in a subroutine :)
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AFA Parik Its also difficult to tell where text areas are as it doesn't
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print ascii eqivs
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JDavies1 To create a game like Dragon SLayer? If anyone remembers that.
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AFL Dyfet The ultimate test of any smart dissasembler is to use it on a long
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file, re-
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AFA Parik very possible JDavies. Expensive though. ;)
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AFL Dyfet assemble the source it produces, and see if it really runs :)
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AFA Parik APDA now sells some video toolkit tools, look in forumlink
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(keyword forumlink)
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AFA Parik for more information.
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AE PhilM Dyfet, the disassmebler is an interactive tool not magic. It just
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makes your
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JDavies1 Well the Game would come with a player (Apple of course) @$1249
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each.
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AE PhilM job easier of interpreting the code...thats all.
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AFL Dyfet That was the point I was trying to bring accross, Phil...I have
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seen some
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AFL Dyfet very sufisticated dissasemblers for other CPU's, but those have
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been done for
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AE PhilM In the 68000 (especially the Mac) where DATA and CODE are
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seperated that is
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AFL Dyfet hardware that does not have opcodes which change state and mode
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:)
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AE PhilM much easier to do...that is not the case with the 65816 and thus
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impossible.
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AE PhilM Unless the disassembler is "smart" enought to distinguish code
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from data...that
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AE PhilM would require super AI capabilities.
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AFL Dyfet That is also true, Phil :)...If good consistant programming
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practices are used,
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RosenNeil as opposed to super AE capabilities? :)
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Dave Lyons (It would require more than super AI...you could write code where
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some stuff
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Dave Lyons is *both* code and data. :-)
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JDavies1 I have a real problem doing that. And that's with RI.
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AFA Gary J Parik, I missed if you answered about "backing up" the program
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counter during
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AFL Dyfet the product should be able to provide a very reliable source :)
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AE PhilM True Dave
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AFA Parik In the past two minutes I just disassembled shrinkit. hehehe
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AFA Gary J a disassembly. Can the ORCA disassembler do that?
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AFA Parik what do you mean backing up pc? you mean between jsls?
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AE PhilM True Dyfet...but there are times that I purposely mix data and
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code just to
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AE PhilM make it a little tougher for the hacker to take apart the code.
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:))
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AFA Gary J No, like if you are disassemling along, and find yourself into
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data, or
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JDavies1 Doesn't Merlin16's Sourceror do the same things?
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AFL Dyfet With a suitable bit of recursion and some deduction and a little
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smarts, you
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Dave Lyons Gary, Mike W demo'd it to me briefly at AFest...you just select
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part of the
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AFL Dyfet can find MANY instances of mixed code and data...
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AFA Gary J ASCII stuff. Can you re-position your program counter to back-up
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to where
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AFA Gary J you were still getting good code?
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AFA Parik It disassembles the WHOLE thing Gary.
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AFA Parik You then run through it afterwords.
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Dave Lyons disassembly and choose a menu item to re-disassemble that part in
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a different
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Dave Lyons way.
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AFA Gary J Ugh.
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AFA Gary J Oh.
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AFA Gary J That's not too bad, then.
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AFA Parik thats right - you can make str's, etc. But it has no text display
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(ascii chars
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DavidD117 Does anyone know what GSOS is written in?
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AFA Parik so its a bit difficult unless you print out the file.
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AFL Dyfet An easy and interactive tool is what is often needed :)...the
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results may not
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AE PhilM GS/OS is written in Assemble (I hope)
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AFL Dyfet be perfect, but it can be very useful and usable, especially when
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studying
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JDavies1 GSOS is hopefully
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AFA Gary J AppleSoft basic
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AFL Dyfet other programs to learn from them :)
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JDavies1 written in assembly
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Dave Lyons Yes, GS/OS is all written in assembly.
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AFA Parik prodos 16 was written in logo I hear... ;)
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AFA Gary J :)
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AE PhilM :)
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JDavies1 No Parik thats GSWorks.
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AFL Dyfet No, Parik, in Pilot :)
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RosenNeil maybe BASIC
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Doctor Why I heard that it was written on July FORTH.
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Dave Lyons (Next topic, anyone? :)
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DavidD117 Copy protection
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AFA Parik whats apple's new IIe/c tools for development? (new assembler or
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something
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AFA Gary J What about it?
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AFA Parik announced at KC?)
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AFL Dyfet Let's cover David's question first, people :)
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AFA Gary J It's probably part of MPW, Parik :)
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AFL Dyfet Now, what precisely is your question, David?
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JDavies1 Do you mean cracking it or protecting your own stuff?
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DavidD117 cracking so it can be used with a hard disk
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DavidD117 Is there any programs out there like copy plus but for the Apple
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DavidD117 .
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JDavies1 I agree with that especially If Brian Greenstone is on.
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AFL Dyfet There are a number of programs for COPYING protected software, but
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none of
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JDavies1 Why ask for the master disk every level?
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AFL Dyfet those packages allow you to do more than that; You cannot use it
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to install
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AFL Dyfet protected software onto a harddisk, for example.
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AFA Parik Copy II+ exists for the Apple II david.
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JDavies1 Kill the ServiceMgr
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AFA Gary J Didn't Copy II+ have some patches or something like that?
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AFA Parik Copy II+ does indeed allow hard drive installation.
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AFA Gary J I thought so.
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DavidD117 on the gs?
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AFA Gary J Yes.
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AFL Dyfet They have added patch files? I was not aware of that :)...but
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then, I have
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AFA Parik I'd hold off on purchasing it as v9.0 is due for release real
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soon. Yes, there
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JDavies1 Well didn'y Copy II+ just break the protection?
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AFA Parik is a GS section on it with deprotects for over 200 GS programs.
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Many allow you
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AFL Dyfet not had need for that feature of Copy II+ :)
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AFA Parik to install it on the hard drive (not all).
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AFA Parik With a little practice, you can do it yourself though. I suggest
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dling the
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AFA Parik deprotects in the games forum software lib / information center /
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deprotects.
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JDavies1 Every Parameter with the '(HD)' was suppose to allow you to
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install it on a HD.
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JDavies1 Are we off the subject, or is it me?????
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Dave Lyons Okay...now for the Apple II development tools that were introduced
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at KC?
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AFL Dyfet Yes, we are, Davies, and I think we should move to that second
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question, as
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AFL Dyfet Dave has just done :)
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JDavies1 OK
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Dave Lyons The stuff that was introduced is a compact run-time library of
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assembly
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Dave Lyons routines, and a set of macros to go with it. The result is an
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environment
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Dave Lyons that you can program in really quickly, for some kinds of Apple II
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programming.
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Dave Lyons There are routines & macros for dealing with 2-byte integer
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variables,
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AFA Gary J Neat. What kind of routines?
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Dave Lyons strings up to 256 bytes, and arrays up to 4 dimensions.
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Dave Lyons Now for the semi-bad news: so far, the macros are only for the
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MPW IIgs
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Dave Lyons cross assembler. We would like to release a version for APW, too,
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but so
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Dave Lyons far we haven't found a way to do it that makes it easy to use (the
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macros
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JDavies1 Dave, we should do something bad for bring us on like that.
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Dave Lyons are pretty complex, using lots of conditional tests that can't be
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done the
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Dave Lyons same way in APW).
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Dave Lyons BTW, the author of the routines is Eric Soldan of Apple II
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Developer Technical
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Dave Lyons Support.
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DavidD117 Can APW be used in ORCA/C's GUI?
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Dave Lyons GUI?
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Dave Lyons (Graphical User Interface?)
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AFL Dyfet I think he means 'Prizm' :)
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DavidD117 Graphical User Interface
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Dave Lyons The ORCA shell and the APW shell are very similar; the assemblers
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are
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Dave Lyons identical.
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DavidD117 Let's say desktop:)
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AFL Dyfet You can use most of the utilities that run under APW with ORCA.
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Many of the
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AFL Dyfet same utilities provided with APW itself are also already present
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in the ORCA
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AFL Dyfet system.
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AFL Dyfet As DL pointed out, some (many) utilities are in fact identical
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:)
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DavidD117 OK I 've got a question
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AFL Dyfet Okay, go ahead, David...
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Dave Lyons I've got an answer...let's see if they match. :)
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JDavies1 Dave BTW thanks for all help.
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DavidD117 Is there any talking software for the //gs that can be developed
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with
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DavidD117 Assembly?
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DavidD117 ie. speech tools?
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AFL Dyfet TML used to provide a toolset you could install that would
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synthesise speach
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AFL Dyfet (a speach tool, as you put it) :). I have never used it myself,
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but I believe
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AFL Dyfet it is still available.
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Dave Lyons TML's speech toolkit is still available...but there's a hefty
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license fee
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Dave Lyons from First Byte if you want to distribute it with your product.
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Dave Lyons (It's also written as a three System toolsets, which bugs me.
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User toolsets
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AFL Dyfet First Byte, in that case, has an interesting connotation :)
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Dave Lyons are provided & ought to be used; there will be a November
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Technical Note from
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Dave Lyons me on that subject.)
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DavidD117 Can SmoothTalker just be patched into a regular program?
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AFL Dyfet Yes, I was wondering about their use of system toolsets also,
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Dave, and at
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AFL Dyfet one point had the impression that assignment of toolsets may be
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sanctioned by
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AFL Dyfet Apple. A tech note would be very good for future clearification
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on this.
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Dave Lyons My technical note, in its current form (going out for review
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inside Apple)
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Dave Lyons says that all 255 System toolset numbers are reserved for
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Apple--as far as I
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Dave Lyons know that's true, and we haven't ever assigned a system toolset #
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to a third
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JDavies1 Speaking of Tech Notes does anyone what note discusses CDevices
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Dave Lyons party.
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Dave Lyons (Actually, somebody stole #30, which was a Bad Move, because now
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it's the
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Dave Lyons Resource Manager!)
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Dave Lyons (Those programs don't work too hot under 5.0.x.)
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DavidD117 But First Byte is the only option?
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AFL Dyfet Somebody was being very bad, I see :)...David, I am not familiar
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with the
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AFL Dyfet smoothtalker, but there are many external speach senthesysers that
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can be
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AFL Dyfet hooked up to a serial port. Making those talk is as easy as
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writing text to
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AFL Dyfet them :). A few of the older internal cards that were once made
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for the Appe
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DavidD117 Let's let the gs show its INTERNAL gifts I say.:)
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DavidD117 I know RC makes double talk
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AFL Dyfet could also be easily adapted, if one is profient enough to write a
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driver :).
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AFL Dyfet Also, there is somewhere the 'old' SAM software, which provided an
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all software
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AFL Dyfet speach senthesyser.
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DavidD117 for what systems?
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AFL Dyfet (SAM = 'Software Automated Mouth', I believe...the versions I
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recall were all
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AFL Dyfet 8 bit, but it is possible that SAM was converted...)
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DavidD117 couldn't be very understandable then
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AFL Dyfet It was not, David. I do not know how understandable the TML
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toolkit is,
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AFL Dyfet but I suspect it suffers from the same limitations.
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DavidD117 I have heard it, I'll give it about a 6 out of ten.
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