IBM ROM BASIC or lack thereof

From: Hans B Pufal <hansp_at_aconit.org>
Date: Wed Oct 3 15:56:34 2001

gwynp_at_artware.qc.ca wrote:

> On 30-Sep-2001 Tony Duell wrote:
>
>>There was one time I was glad I had a true IBM PC/XT and not a clone. I
>>needed ROM BASIC. The reason was, my floppy controller had suffered a
>>hardward failure. The machine managed to give up trying to boot from
>>floppies, and fell into ROM BASIC. Where I could use OUT commands to
>>send values to the floppy controller ports, and I could look at signals
>>on the floppy controller card with a logic probe. Took me about 5 minutes
>>to find the dead 74LS273 latch that was holding the 8272 in the reset
>>state.
>>
>>If I'd not had BASIC in ROM, I'd have had a long day ahead of me trying
>>to debug that machine...
>>
>
> You, sir, are, and I mean this in the best possible way, INSANE. I am in
> awe.


Not at all. Many years ago I developed a tiny basic for a machine for
the very purpose of allowing an engineer to write small test programs
and "scope loops", short sequences of operations used to make scoping of
signals possible. Its a great tools for that.

As a fun project at the moment I am reimplementing tiny BASIC on the pc
(yes I'm sure I could find one on the web but...) Looks like it will
need about 2kb (it's 1800 bytes right now but missing a couple of features)

I have little hope but I will try and see if I can get it incorporated
into the BIOS my employer develops.

   -- HBP
Received on Wed Oct 03 2001 - 15:56:34 BST

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