PROCEDURES IN / FOR PROTON/POSITRON BASIC

[HAL]

WHERE CAN I FIND INFORMATION RELEVANT TO WRITING A PROCEDURE FOR USE IN PROTON/POSITRON BASIC?

THANKS!

[Gamboa]

HAL,
In the Proton operating manual there is a chapter called Procedures where he talks extensively on this matter.

Regards,

Gamboa

[Stephen Moss]

HAL,
in case you don't know where they are you can find PDF Manuals located under Documents in the IDE help menu.

[top204]

I'll have a word with John for his excellent Positron Studio IDE and try to make the compiler user manuals clearer to find.

[HAL]

GENTLEMEN

THANK YOU EVER SO MUCH!

I AM SORT OF A BEGINNER MEANING THAT I STARTED DECADES AGO WITH A 6800 & 6502 SO THAT I AM USED TO A VERBOSE INSTRUCTION SET.  I WOULD NOT TOUCH A PIC BUT FOR THE SUPERB COMPILER AND THIS FORUM.  IF THE COMPILER WERE MUSIC IT WOULD BE ON PAR WITH MOZART.  PLEASE FEEL FREE TO QUOTE ME!

THANKS AGAIN!

[top204]

Many thanks Hans. Lovely words. :-)

I started with the Z80 assembler code in 1982 with my Sinclair ZX81, then the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, then moved on to the 6502 microprocessor with the Atari machines and the commodore 64 machine.

They were good times, learning to code in assembler from the Z80 technical books. I could make the ZX spectrum jump through hoops eventually. :-) Then I got to see an Atari 800 and I fell in love with it, so I learned 6502 and wrote games for it and utilities, so the move to the Commodore 64 was relatively simple because it also used a 6502 (ish) microprocessor, and it was a lovely machine to write games and demos for.

I always found computer languages and digital circuits rather straightforward, even when my friends were struggling with them. :-) I am self taught with computer languages and digital electronics, and my electronics teaching was from my lovely dad as I grew up, then through my apprenticeship as a TV engineer. So it has always been in my blood, from being first born to now, and all thanks to my dad. RIP. I sometimes hope he is watching from wherever he is and is proud of some of the things I've done. Not all of the things I've done in my life. LOL, but some of them. :-)

[HAL]

HI TOP204
TRUER WORDS HAVE NOT BEEN SPOKEN...

I BECAME ACQUAINTED WITH THE 6800 (RUNNING AT A CLOCK OF 640kHZ BEFORE DIVIDE BY FOUR) BACK IN SCHOOL.  A VERY GOOD FRIEND OF MINE PURCHASED A KIM-1 6502 WITH 1K RAM.  ONE EVENING, HE CAME TO VISIT WITH THE KIM-1, AND I WAS HOOKED!!  THE KIM WAS EVENTUALLY REPLACED BY AN AIM 65 (4K RAM) AND SOMEWHERE IN THE SPACE OF TIME CAME AN LNW-80 (AN ENHANCED TRS80 CLONE)  WHICH LED ME INTO BASIC.  AND THEN A MICRO ACE (FROM THE UK) A Z80 BASED COPY OF THE SINCLAIR. AND ULTIMATELY AN IBM PC.  THE PC I ASSEMBLED FROM PARTS (AND JUST BETWEEN US THE PROMS WITH THE OPERATING SYSTEM PRINTED OUT NICELY TO ABOUT 20 PAGES OF PAPER) I HAD MADE AN EPROM PROGRAMMER FOR THE AIM 65)... 

IT IS GREAT TO FIND SO MANY TALENTED PEOPLE WILLING TO SHARE THEIR KNOWLEDGE ON THIS FORUM...  THE GOOD FRIEND THAT I MENTIONED (R. F. B.) HAS A GREAT MIND AND A PERSONALITY TO MATCH.  I HAVE THANKED HIM MANY TIMES FOR THE KIM-1 INTRODUCTION. 

AS THE SAYING GOES: YOU CAN TAKE THE BOY OUT OF ENGINEERING BUT YOU CAN NOT TAKE THE ENGINEER OUT OF THE BOY! 

THE COMPILER IS AWESOME....
THE USE OF PROCEDURES MAKE IT EVEN MORE AWESOME....
I CAN'T WAIT TO TRY....

[Stephen Moss]

I'll have a word with John for his excellent Positron Studio IDE and try to make the compiler user manuals clearer to find.

Presumable they were put there as that is where they are in the Mechanique IDE to make them easy to find for those familiar with that IDE.

Unless the user has set the option not to display the Welcome page on start up the manual links there are fairly easy to find under the big "Documentation" heading, but those keen to get coding could quickly move past the page without paying too much attention to it. Which is a same as I think it is nicely laid out, giving easy access to everything you really need at start-up, access to open old/create files, recent files and the large number of included code samples.

[top204]

Hans.... Can you turn off capitalisation when you are typing please?

It is actually difficult to read.

Thanks.

[HAL]

Gentlemen

My apologies about the capitals.  I use them in reminder notes to myself and forget to turn of the caps key.  My vision is not what it once was.

The help menu, I guess my best response is duh!

In my defense, the first time I had used the help key for the forum its response was the 404 message...  Thus, I have kind of ignored it, thinking maybe a link issue.  I created a separate link to this forum.

I'm really quite new to the "forum" in general and my forum etiquette is no doubt substantially lacking, but my intent is certainly not to offend anyone.

Please let me know if I am!
hal

[John Drew]

Thanks Hal, much easier to read now.
Best wishes
John

[HAL]

Thanks John

73

hal

[HAL]

Gentlemen

I did use the help icon and did get a manual copy (which was an old version / 511 pages).  It did have instructions on procedures but also all of the old addresses and links.  After a couple hours in window's many file areas, I did find a new copy of the manual / 555 pages.  I uploaded it.  If it would be possible to place somewhere on the forum, it may save someone else from a similar search effort.  I liked DOS 3.1 best...

hal

[Stephen Moss]

HAL, I have Compiler Version 3.7.5.5 installed and both the original Mechanique IDE & the newer Positron Studio IDE and in both IDE's when I go to the Help Menu - Documents and select "Proton Compiler Manual" or "Positron 8 Manual" as applicable to the IDE in use, the 8 bit manual is 555 pages.

The only reasons I can think of for you having a manual with a lower page count is that either...
1) you have a older version of the compiler installed (go to the IDE's Help menu and click "About" to find the installed version number)
2) An older manual version was accidently included with the latest install/upgrade (unlikely but possible) or
3) Subsequent changes to the manual have resulted in the latest version having less pages that the previous version thereby only creating the appearance that it may be older.

My money is on option 1 as in my experience the most up to date compiler version comes with the most up to date manual version and there is no point hunting down the latest manual version to use with an earlier version of the compiler as they may not be fully compatible with regards to their respective commands and features.

[top204]

The Positron manuals are slightly smaller because they do not have the IDE in them. They are purely about the compilers themselves.

With John's excellent Positron Studio picking up pace with users, that, eventually, will be the default IDE that I will use for screenshots and articles etc...

[HAL]

Thank you gentlemen;

I went searching in the w7 files and found my problem.

I had 2 versions under program files....

Created an icon to the most recent version -> problem solved...

Question: is there a link from the forum to the POSITRON8 etc. site???

My unsolicited opinion: anyone who reads the manual is going to want a copy of POSITRON8..

best regards

hal

[top204]

I always wanted a TRS80 for my collection Hal! But I could never find one in this country (UK).

They were excellent for their time, even though they were black and white only. Then they brought out the excellent  colour version, which again, were not readily available in this country because we had Tandy, not Radio Shack, and they tended to be more electrical than electronic.

[normnet]

...With John's excellent Positron Studio picking up pace with users, that, eventually, will be the default IDE that I will use for screenshots and articles etc...

Please consider screenshots and articles of both Positron Studio and FineLineIDE.  Both IDE's have contributed with powerful features and both provide an advantage over the competition's IDE's.

[top204]

Sorry Norm... I keep forgetting about your excellent FineLine IDE. :-(

I'll download the latest version and give it a try.

Both IDEs are brilliant, however, over the years, my preferred IDE is UltraEdit, which I have used from the late 1990s when I was first learning assembler code on the PIC micros, and is the same version as I used back then because all the, costly, updates to it over the years have added nothing I actually wanted or needed. So my version of UltraEdit is dated 1999. :-)

It doesn't have the excellent code explorer, or code blocks, or some of the finer code highlighting of the dedicated IDE's but it is what you get used too.

I actually tried a newer version of UltraEdit and it was a lot slower, and a whole lot larger and bloated, than the original version I use, and it took longer to open when clicked on, so I got rid of it A.S.A.P. :-)

Old habits die hard. LOL

[GDeSantis]

Follow this link for older versions of UltraEdit.

https://ultraedit.en.uptodown.com/windows/versions