Readit Newsclassichasclass commented on BBC Micro, ancestor to ARM retrogamecoders.com/bbc-m... · Posted by u/ingve
BBC BASIC is not Microsoft BASIC. You cannot reason about the operation of BBC BASIC from only knowing about Microsoft BASIC.
Whereas I suspect that I am nowhere near the only person on this page who once disassembled ROMs on a BBC Micro. We can state, in contrast, that there was no such self-modifying code. Again, BBC BASIC was in ROM.
Those lucky enough to have a copy of Jeremy Ruston's book after all of these years, or the retrocomputing enthusiasts who still have working Beebs, could even tell you exactly where in ROM the code was that fetched the next token for execution.
I never actually owned a copy of the book, and somewhat envy anyone who still has a copy; although to compensate I do have part of one of my own disassembly listings still, buried somewhere. (-:
I made no claim it was. I was pointing out that ROM BASICs on 6502s have kept track of the current pointer in self-modifying code by copying the relevant section to RAM. Just because it originated in ROM doesn't mean it doesn't. Thank you for explaining the situation with BBC BASIC.
classichasclass commented on BBC Micro, ancestor to ARM retrogamecoders.com/bbc-m... · Posted by u/ingve
There was no self-modifying code. BBC BASIC was in ROM.
I don't know the internals of BBC BASIC, but many Microsoft-derived BASICs do keep track of the current location in the program text with self-modifying code; the routine is copied to a reserved portion of zero page on 6502 machines for speed. On the C64 this routine lives at $0073 and the pointer is at $007a. Because it's in RAM, this makes it a popular location for wedging in additional behaviour or commands (hence the term "wedge" for such extensions). On some systems like the PET, this was the only way to accomplish it.
classichasclass commented on BBC Micro, ancestor to ARM retrogamecoders.com/bbc-m... · Posted by u/ingve
GTE: General Telephone & Electronics
CMD: Commodore Micro-Devices
Commodore manufactured chips either under the MOS Technology or Commodore Semiconductor Group (CSG) names.
classichasclass commented on Office on HP-UX and Unix openpa.net/hp-ux_office.h... · Posted by u/naves
Internet Explorer was originally based on the NCSA Mosaic browser, which had ports for major UNIX platforms.
Indirectly. IE was based on Spyglass Mosaic, which was a licensee of NCSA Mosaic. However, Spyglass had rewritten it to deal with the substantial differences between the Mac, Windows and X11 ports, so even early versions of IE aren't directly descended. Microsoft eventually removed Spyglass' copyright message around IE 7, suggesting no Mosaic code persisted by then.
I remember the first patient I put on exenatide, years ago. She was a diabetic that was very brittle and we were having trouble managing it, and I said it was worth a try and she agreed. "It might even cause a bit of weight loss, which I'm sure you won't object to," I said, which we had a good laugh over.
She lost 10 pounds and a whole point off her A1c. And that was just the first of the drug class. She was very pleased with it.
Also, pedantic nitpick: the anglerfish in the photo is female.
classichasclass commented on We'd be better off with 9-bit bytes pavpanchekha.com/blog/9bi... · Posted by u/luu
This is ignoring the natural fact that we have 8 bit bytes because programmers have 8 fingers.
No, we still have 10. Real programmers think in octal. ;)
Also was the foundation of Blue Box if I remember right. (And QuickTime’s portability layer was for Carbon.)
(author) MAE isn't the basis for Blue Box, though I'm quite sure it informed its design. Blue Box/Classic is actually more like MAS, the aborted Mac compatibility layer for PowerOpen/AIX/"A/UX 4," in that it runs PowerPC code directly on the CPU in the "problem state" and uses a paravirtualized operating system and enabler. There is no processor emulation in Classic except for supervisor and faulting instructions.
There are also differences at the level they execute: MAE can, and was designed to run, as an independent process like any other well-behaved X11 application, and multiple users can run multiple sessions of it, but Classic/Blue Box needs operating system support and only one instance of it can be running on a system by a single user.
I'm an unsure if this deadpan humor or if the author has never tried to solve a CAPTCHA that is something like "select the squares with an orthodox rabbi present"