Quartus Forth Manual

Table of Contents - Quartus Forth Home Page - How to Register

The Sources to "Year"

© Neal Bridges, November 1998.  (nbridges@interlog.com)


If you're unfamiliar with Quartus Forth, please take a look at the Quartus home page: <http://www.interlog.com/~nbridges/quartus.html>

About This Package:

This package contains the source to a polished Quartus Forth application, complete with a menu and icon. By following the provided directions, you can use the registered version of Quartus to compile the app on-board your Palm PDA, and HotSync the resulting .PRC file down to your PC or Mac.

The sources to Year are provided for two purposes: first, as a demonstration of how to write a complete Quartus Forth application, with integrated PalmOS resources; and second, to demonstrate the creation of stand-alone PRCs from Quartus apps.

Beyond that, Year is a handy little program in its own right, and may be of interest from a coding perspective to new Forth programmers.

Files in this package:

Other Required Sources:

Here's a breakdown of what files need what other files, to help you ensure that you have all the supporting library sources installed as memos in your MemoPad: All the files listed here are available in the Quartus File Area.

About Year and Make-Year:

Year will compile and run under the free version of Quartus. Make-year generates a stand-alone PRC of Year, and contains commands that will only function properly under a registered copy of Quartus (or the development beta, during the beta test period).

If you just want to try Year, skip these steps and simply use the Palm Desktop software to HotSync Year.PRC into your Palm device. If you want to compile it yourself, however, read on.

To compile and run Year from the sources provided:

(note: <Return> means a Graffiti Return -- a pen stroke in the Graffiti area from upper right to lower left)

  1. Using the Palm Desktop software, add Year.txt and all supporting files as memos in the MemoPad on your Palm device.
  2. HotSync YearRsrc.prc into your Palm device.
  3. You'll also need Quartus itself HotSync'd in (either the free or the registered version, version 0.8.1 or later).
  4. Start Quartus.
  5. At the prompt, type  include year <Return>
  6. To run Year: when prompted "ok", type   go <Return>

To create a stand-alone PRC from the sources provided:

  1. Follow steps 1-3 above.
  2. Using the Palm Desktop software, add makeyear.txt as a memo in the MemoPad.
  3. Start the registered version of Quartus.
  4. Type  include make-year <Return>
  5. To run Year: from the Palm Application Launcher (or equivalent), start the "Year" icon.
  6. HotSync the device again; Year.PRC will be copied into the backup directory under your Palm Desktop user directory.

Notes:

Quartus compiles the sources to Year into native-code in under 8 seconds.

Make-year extracts approximately 2K of active application code from codespace, and builds it into a new .PRC file along with several required PalmOS resources (a form, menu, about box, help text, and icon). The result: Year.PRC, about 4.5K in size.

Year.PRC is automatically flagged for backup, and will be copied into C:\...\username\backup\Year.PRC at the next HotSync. Year.PRC is a proper stand-alone application that requires no runtime support, and can be HotSync'd (or beamed) into any another Pilot, PalmPilot, or Palm III.


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© 1998 Neal Bridges. All rights reserved.