30 августа 2017

                              News
                        by Alone Coder

Changes in NedoLang system:
- It now supportsdirectories. Instead of some 200 files in one
directory, each of the projects now has a separate directory,
and there is a common../_sdk/ directory. Slashes like / are
used in parameters.
- Severalbugfixes: in compiler, libs, nedotrd, and nedores
(thanks toHippiman ).
-Source file is shown in compiler error messages (in assembler
errors, there are still problems because of lack of memory).
- New functions inio.h:
fread(PBYTE buf, UINT size, UINT n, PBYTE file);
loadfile(PCHAR filename, PBYTE addr);
findlastslash(PCHAR s) (skip path);
readsectors/writesectors(PBYTE buf, UINT trsec, BYTE count).
There was alsocomparedesc(PCHAR filename, PBYTE desc) (compare
TR-DOS descriptor against the filename) but commented because of
extra size.
- Nativebatch processor that runs executables with given
parameters. I corrected the batch files so that they can run on
both Windows and Speccy. Batch processor resides in OxfaOO and
gives away parameter strings pointed by CH_ADD=23645. So I don't
need sophisticated basic loaders for testing any more.
- Sound FX libraryayfxplay.h from Ball Quest and Evo SDK was
integrated.
-128K runtime library added:runtime.h. Provides ports Oxfe,
0x7ffd, various interrupt setters, and interrupt handler (with
separate stack and top of stack restore with DE, two user
callbacks - one before the music, another after it).
- New libraryprint.h. It includes setxy, prchar, nprintf (a
kind of printf supporting %s, %c, %d, %x, %%). It types on
screen (only the upper third is free for utilities now because
there are up to 8 open files).
- Newnative utilities: diff (compare two files and show
differences on screen), nedodel (delete a file), movedisk
(remove deleted files from TRD), and non-native (yet) utility
nedopad (cut or pad a file to a given size). 
- So the testing of NedoLang is automatic now! Each of the parts
(compiler, tokenizer, assembler) fits in one TRD and doesn't
require a RAM-disk.

Then I made two versions of str:str.i vs. str.c (for ARM Thumb
compatibility), and two versions of io:iofast.i vs. io.i + io.c
(to make possible to use a TRD RAM-disk for ARM Thumb target).
ARM Thumb target was added in compiler, tokenizer, and 
assembler. Compiler for ARM Thumb already works! Initially I
tested it through Keil assembler and Phyton debugger ( Phyton
assembler is incompatible) - Z80 tokenizer compiled for ARM
Thumb produces right result on RAM-disk. Then I made tokenizer 
and assembler process the same assembly source and generate the
same output as Keil assembler. Function addressing bias on Thumb
was a pain: pointers to functions must be odd, and pointers to
data must be even! Finally I dropped Keil assembler
compatibility to make everything easier.

Some of ARM Thumb commands are not used in the compiler, so I
can't test them. Any help?

Download the release candidate from
http://alonecoder.nedopc.com/zx/

Only native IDE is missing yet. By the way, have anyone seen the
sources of C Warp?

                             * * *

Hippiman changed his residence, then started to make a game
engine atop of NedoLang. Time came to publish his article about
linking modules in NedoLang's competitor Evo SDK :) NedoLang has
EXPORT feature for this.

Louisa draws a 3D model of our future home. We recently measured
the flat.

John Silver bought studio speakers. They reproduce every click
in music :) I was shocked to see how noisy were original Beatles
recordings and many more...

Savelij13 with the help ofDimkaM finished a new version of 
TR-DOS for ZX Evo that allows running sophisticated loaders. 

TDD/MSD from Ufa reappeared after many years and produced an
unofficial fix in ZX Evo powering schematics. His groupeeSAVC
wrote a couple of open-source Speccy utilities: view_keys and
font-convert-ed (see them here - long time no supplement in the 
newspaper :)), but soon vanished.

As I guess, the first ATM 8.00 board was finally assembled by
Zorel and will be sent toMaksagor. This is the first 
incarnation of ATMЗ on small-scale integration chips.

I forgot to mention something in the previous issue. Hungarian
hackers portedWolfenstein 2004 to Enterprise 128 - very close
conversion. Even the music was converted. They made that for
some Enterprise compo but haven't contacted me in any way >:(

A number of demoparties happened, so it would be interesting to
read some sceners' thoughts about demoparties from old logs (see
the next article).