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JUNE99.TXT
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Microreview for June 1999 Micropendium
by Charles Good
THE COMPLETE GPL PACKAGE
compiled by Rich Gilbertson
Rich Gilbertson is definately the best GPL programmer left in the TI community. His
enhanced extended basic known as RXB pushes the technological limit of what can be
done with the 99/4A. It is programmed in GPL which is probably the most efficient
programming language there is for our computer. A GPL program usually uses less
memory than the same program written in either extended basic or in assembly. In a
December 1992 Micropendium article Rich compares 12 short programs written in the
three languages. In each case the GPL version uses less memory. Programs written in GPL
can be converted to ea5 format so that can be run without the need for any version of
extended basic.
Rich has put together a package of information and software for those who want to try their
hand at this uniquely 99/4(a) programming language. This information is all available
archived on 3 DSSD disks. There is also a supplemental hard copy of the above
mentioned Micropendium article and other interesting material. Here is what you get on
the disks.
TI Graphics Programming Language Users Guide, a 1979 TI document. This is designed to
aid those programming TI command modules. It is quite comprehensive and even includes
chapters on style. You are told how to make good looking screens, what good user
interactive prompts should look like, and what colors go together. Special instructions are
included for the creation of multilingual command modules.
You also get the following official TI documents, all dated 1980 and all except the speech
document updated in March 1983: ôFunctional Specifications for the 99/4 disk
peripheralö, ôGPL Interface Specifications for the 99/4 Disk Peripheralö, Software
Specifications for the 99/4 Disk Peripheralö, and ôSpeech Synthesizer Principle of
Operationö. The speech document is particularly interesting because TI produced very
little documentation about its speech synthesizer.
GPL assembler and linker. This is one of several GPL assemblers that have been made
available over the years. It takes GPL source code as created with a text editor such as the
Funnelweb editor. You use the TI GPL User Guide as well as the on disk documentation
that comes with this assembler to create the source code. Following easy directions you
use the assembler to assemble the code and then you use the linker to link this assembled
code so that it can be run from an assembly loader. ThatÆs right, you can run your
assembled GPL program as an EA5 program.
Among the most interesting parts of this GPL package are the two assembler/linker demos.
Using two different demo source codes provided you just follow the step by step
instructions you are taken through the complete process needed to create demo programs
that can be run as ea5. When you run these assembled and linked ea5 GPL programs you
are taken back to the ôPress 1 for TI Basicö screen, which displays additional menu items
for your GPL programs. One of the demos shows how to take several different GPL
programs and display them simultaneously as separate menu items following ôPress 1 for
TI Basicö.
For free I can email you the three DSSD disks in PC99 format and the supplemental hard
copy as a Microsoft Word v6 file. If you want me to mail real TI disks and the hard copy
handout please send me $3 to cover my xerox media and postage expenses.
...........................
ACCESS
Rich Gilbertson (master GPL programmer and the compiler of
the complete GPL package)
1901 H Street
Vancouver, WA 98663-3352
Phone: 1-360-737-7963
Charles Good (source of the GPL package by email or regular
mail)
P.O. Box 647
Venedocia OH 45894
Phone 419-667-3131
Email good.6@osu.edu