Re: OT: FIDE x64 and the future

The format for the output was documented. IIRC, though, there were also one
or two errors in the documentation. There was an alternative compiler that
someone created that documents these commands. It was at John's old ftp
site. I'm sure he has it somewhere. If you read that .BAS file, you can
learn about some other hidden/unpublished tricks.

I took the approach of creating a "pre-compiler" that dealt with include
files and such and then that got passed into the 9LC compiler because I
didn't want to have to re-write a compiler. Believe me, the thought did
cross my mind! Imagine being able to write something closer to C# that
could run on the 9010A :-)

But once I got FIDE to a point, I figured it was "good enough". I was
spending far more time developing FIDE than fixing boards! Although it was
a fun project.

I'll look into putting FIDE up on sourceforge.net some time this week. Then
others that want to take a crack at it can. Another approach that I had
considered was doing something like butchering #develop or some other IDE
to have a richer, color syntax highlighting IDE to write the test scripts
in.

JB

----------------------------------------
From: martin@guddler.co.uk
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 1:43 PM
To: "Technical Tools Mail List" <techtoolslist@flippers.com>
Subject: Re: [Techtoolslist] OT: FIDE x64 and the future

Hi Tim,

It's actually pretty easy. It's not really a compiler as such. Hmm, well,
I suppose it is! All it does is convert the commands into 9010 keypresses
pretty much.

The format is actually fully documented in the back of one of the manuals.
I forget which one it is but my money would be on it being a technical or
programming one :)

Martin.

> Hi all,
>
> I just wanted to chime in here. First, thanks to James for FIDE and the
> many
> hours of easy 9010A programming it has provided me.
>
> Secondly, I recently upgraded to Vista x64 and found that FIDE no longer
> works. I was planning to mail James separately but this seems an
> appropriate
> forum. The issue as Martin has alluded is 9lc.exe and its status as a
> 16bit
> exe. As there is no 16bit run time or thunking on x64, it fails badly. I
> was
> happy to accept this as recently I've just been using FIDE to suck
scripts
> from the Fluke for storage. Unfortunately, it seems FIDE tries to run
9lc
> when most FIDE - Fluke IO operations occur. These fail and FIDE refuses
to
> go further. Is it possible to provide a short-term fix build which
allows
> the FIDE - Fluke IO without calling 9lc? A sort of compiled object only
> mode?
>
> The second part, and that which I think is much more important for the
> future when x64 and/or non-intel CPUs become ubiquitous is to define a
> replacement for 9lc. I've not performed any analysis yet, but I would
> anticipate it's a simple, non-relocatable compiler. Are there any
details
> 'out there'? Does anybody have any Fluke documentation or tech notes on
> the
> format? I've written compilers before and hopefully in the reaches of my
> brain, enough information remains to get a basic replacement coded. I
> don't
> think I have enough time to reduce 9lc back to source to determine the
> inner
> workings, but I am confident I can find enough time to code a
replacement
> from a partial spec.
>
> To make a production grade replacement, I'd need plenty of varied source
> scripts too; if this takes off I'll be back for those later. It would of
> course be released to the public domain.
>
> thanks,
> tim
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Received on Mon Feb 23 13:53:49 2009