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BIGBAISC.TXT
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2006-10-19
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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED MARCH 1988 IN
LIMA NEWSLETTER
AN EASY WAY TO MAKE LARGE TI
BASIC PROGRAMS WORK
^^^^^^PROPERLY WHEN LOADED
AS DISK FILES
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^by Charles Good
Some large TI-BASIC programs
originally written for cassette are
very hard to get to work properly
as disk PROGRAM files. This is
because the disk system takes up some
VDP memory (the 16K RAM memory in the
console), and these very large
TI-BASIC programs need nearly all the
VDP (console) memory when they load
from tape. TI-BASIC cannot access
the 32K memory expansion. If CALL
FILES(1) doesn't work, you are
usually out of luck. The large
TI-BASIC program either refuses to
load from tape when the disk system
is turned on, or the program loads
from tape, can be saved to disk as a
PROGRAM file, but won't work when
loaded and RUN from disk because the
program runs out of memory as it
executes. Examples of such large TI
BASIC programs include NAME THAT BONE
published by C Regina in 99er
Magazine a few years ago (53
sectors), TYPING SYMBOLS a 1981 99er
magazine program originally written
for the 99/4 (56 sectors), and the
DOW-4 GAZELLE flight simulator
marketed by James Dow (47 sectors).
A few years ago SMART PROGRAMMER
published a rather complicated way of
using the Mini Memory and its
EXPMEM2 file to get such large
TI-BASIC programs to work from disk.
If you have a Horizon Ramdisk, there
is a much easier way. According to
an article by Chris Schram in the
Dec.^87 issue of Micropendium,
Horizon Ramdisks use up only 11 bytes
of VDP memory and will work exactly
as disk drives even if the console is
turned on BEFORE the PE box is turned
on. This procedure deactivates the
floppy drives and prevents the disk
controller from eating up lots of VDP
memory. To make large TI-BASIC
programs work properly from Horizon
Ramdisks, do the following.
1. If you don't already have the
large BASIC program saved to disk,
hook up your tape recorder, turn on
the console FIRST and THEN turn on
the PE box. Load your program from
tape into TI BASIC (it may be
necessary to unplug any modules,
since modules eat up VDP memory even
if you go to TI BASIC instead of the
module) and SAVE it to the Horizon
Ramdisk with SAVE DSK3.PROGRAM.
2. Check that your saved PROGRAM
works by typing NEW. Then type OLD
DSK3.PROGRAM and when the cursor
appears type RUN.
3. Power down your system, then
power it up in the normal way with
the PE box on first and then the
console. Use any disk manager to
save your PROGRAM to disk for
archival storage.
4. Now, every time you want to
run the program, put it on your
Horizon ramdisk (if it isn't already
there) and OLD and RUN it the normal
way. Just remember to turn on your
console FIRST when you want to run
one of these large TI-BASIC programs
off the Horizon Ramndisk.
This technique is SO EASY
compared to loading from tape or
using the Smart Programmer's Mini
Memory method, and the technique
works for large XBASIC programs as
well if they list as a PROGRAM in a
disk directory.
.PL 1