22 replies to this topic

[atari2600land]

I found out that there is a limit to the number of characters 2600IDE can handle. I don't know what the number is, but download this .bas file and press and hold down the 'a' key at the beginning. Notice that it stops after 4 or 5 seconds, at least it does on my computer. Weird.

Attached Files

•  gosubtwo81.bas   63.94K   24 downloads

Edited by atari2600land, Tue Dec 11, 2007 7:18 PM.

[CurtisP]

atari2600land, on Tue Dec 11, 2007 8:14 PM, said:

I found out that there is a limit to the number of characters 2600IDE can handle. I don't know what the number is, but download this .bas file and press and hold down the 'a' key at the beginning. Notice that it stops after 4 or 5 seconds, at least it does on my computer. Weird.

It seems pretty obvious to me that the limit is 65535 bytes, which is just under 64K. Not surpising since that is the largest number that two bytes can hold.

[Fort Apocalypse]

Have been using Crimson Editor and it works pretty well.

We could develop plugins for a more recent editor/IDE like Eclipse, but that is probably overkill as editing sprites and playfields by hand is not hard. Although there is something to be said for being able to draw freehand and/or easily make animations. Being able to import images in and convert them to playfields/etc. would be cool. And Composing music would also be a great thing to make easier through some plugin.

Also think it might be cool if Fred were to decide that it would make sense to open source batari Basic (even if he still reserved rights to sell licenses which could definitely still happen - I don't know what the legal ramifications are to allowing open-source development of a product that you want to retain sole rights to ownership are, but I assume it is possible at least in some sense). But I feel lucky just that he is letting us use it for free now. It is pretty cool to be able to write 2600 games easily/quickly.

[SeaGtGruff]

Fort Apocalypse, on Wed Jan 2, 2008 7:16 AM, said:

Also think it might be cool if Fred were to decide that it would make sense to open source batari Basic

I'm not sure, but I think it might already be-- at least, the C source code is available (although maybe that's just so people can "build" a version of it for additional operating systems).

Michael

[atari2600land]

Can Crimson Editor handle more than 64K as a .bas file? If so, where do I get it?

[SeaGtGruff]

atari2600land, on Wed Jan 2, 2008 11:24 PM, said:

Can Crimson Editor handle more than 64K as a .bas file? If so, where do I get it?

Yes, I believe so. It's at http://www.crimsoneditor.com/, and you can find instructions for setting it up to compile and run bB programs in Session 3 of the tutorial I started. (And on another note, I've resumed working on Session 4, which I hope to post this weekend!)

Michael

[batari]

SeaGtGruff, on Wed Jan 2, 2008 5:44 PM, said:

Fort Apocalypse, on Wed Jan 2, 2008 7:16 AM, said:

Also think it might be cool if Fred were to decide that it would make sense to open source batari Basic

I'm not sure, but I think it might already be-- at least, the C source code is available (although maybe that's just so people can "build" a version of it for additional operating systems).

Michael

Depends what you mean by open source. bB is open source and free of charge, and always will be, but it is not in the public domain. It is also not licensed under the GPL. Both GPL and public doman would allow other people to charge money for the software, which I wanted to avoid. So it has a BSD-style license instead.

Now if 2600IDE were open source, we possibly could fix the 64k problem... But that's unlikely to happen given that attendo has left the scene. Because of our inability to fix the limitation, the tutorial should probably say that 2600IDE is not recommended.

[atari2600land]

SeaGtGruff, on Thu Jan 3, 2008 7:41 AM, said:

you can find instructions for setting it up to compile and run bB programs in Session 3 of the tutorial I started.

Can you provide a link to the tutorial?

[SeaGtGruff]

atari2600land, on Sat Jan 5, 2008 12:01 AM, said:

SeaGtGruff, on Thu Jan 3, 2008 7:41 AM, said:

you can find instructions for setting it up to compile and run bB programs in Session 3 of the tutorial I started.

Can you provide a link to the tutorial?

http://www.bataribas...m/session3.html

Michael

[atari2600land]

I followed the instructions and when I tried to compile a program, Crimson Editor says "The system cannot find the file specified. Terminated with exit code 255." What am I doing wrong here?

[SeaGtGruff]

atari2600land, on Sat Jan 5, 2008 8:40 AM, said:

I followed the instructions and when I tried to compile a program, Crimson Editor says "The system cannot find the file specified. Terminated with exit code 255." What am I doing wrong here?

Can you post a screenshot of your tool setup, like this?



Michael

Edit: Also, what directories are you using? If I remember correctly from back when I helped you get 2600IDE working for you, you've got everything installed (in a folder?) on your desktop, right? If so, that would mean there are probably spaces in the directory paths, so you'd need to put quotes around certain things. Also, if your directory paths aren't the same as mine, then you would need to substitute your directory paths in place of mine while following my step-by-step instructions. Once you post your screenshot and indicate what your directory names look like, I should be able to tell you what to change.

Edited by SeaGtGruff, Sat Jan 5, 2008 5:10 PM.

[atari2600land]

I've got all my bB things in a folder in My Documents called 'bBv1.0'.

Attached Thumbnails

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[SeaGtGruff]

atari2600land, on Sat Jan 5, 2008 10:55 PM, said:

I've got all my bB things in a folder in My Documents called 'bBv1.0'.

Yep, you've got at least one space in your directory path-- between "My" and "Documents" (i.e., "My Documents"). I don't think it will matter in the "Command" and "Initial Dir" fields, but it will definitely mess things up in the "Argument" field.

Click in the "Argument" field.

Press the "Home" key to go to the beginning of the field.

Type a quote (") at the beginning of the field.

Press the "End" key to go to the end of the field.

Type another quote (") at the end of the field.

Click the "OK" button, then try recompiling.

If that doesn't fix it, then do the same thing for the "Command" and "Initial Dir" fields.

Michael

Edit: I'm assuming your "2600bas.bat" file is okay. If these instructions don't fix your problem, zip up your "2600bas.bat" file and post it in this thread, so I can fix it for you by adding quotes where needed.

Edited by SeaGtGruff, Sun Jan 6, 2008 12:17 AM.

[atari2600land]

SeaGtGruff, on Sat Jan 5, 2008 10:12 PM, said:

If that doesn't fix it, then do the same thing for the "Command" and "Initial Dir" fields.

Michael

Edit: I'm assuming your "2600bas.bat" file is okay. If these instructions don't fix your problem, zip up your "2600bas.bat" file and post it in this thread, so I can fix it for you by adding quotes where needed.

I tried what you said and a popup window said it was unable to find 2600bas.bat. So here's the file.

Attached Files

•  my2600basbatchfile.zip   804bytes   23 downloads

[SeaGtGruff]

atari2600land, on Sun Jan 6, 2008 6:53 AM, said:

I tried what you said and a popup window said it was unable to find 2600bas.bat. So here's the file.

If it couldn't find the batch file at all, then there must be a problem with the "Command" entry, or else the batch file isn't in the indicated directory. I'll look through your batch file and modify it as needed to handle directory paths with spaces in them, and repost it. In the meantime, post a screenshot of the open folder that contains the "2600bas.bat" batch file. Also, pull up the tool (like you did to take a screenshot of it) and click the "Save Tools" button, call it "tools," and save it where you can find it easily, like on the desktop. Then zip up the resulting "tools.cmd" file and post it as well.

Michael

Edit: Another quick question... Is the "bBv1.0" folder located on your desktop, or do you just have a desktop *shortcut* that points to the folder's real location? The reason I ask is because your batch file says "set bB=C:\bBv1.0," which suggests that the folder is really located off of the root, and whatever you have on your desktop is just a shortcut to it. I need to know this before I edit your batch file.

Second edit: Also, this could affect what you'd want to set up in the Crimson Editor tool.

Edited by SeaGtGruff, Sun Jan 6, 2008 4:57 PM.

[atari2600land]

SeaGtGruff, on Sun Jan 6, 2008 2:49 PM, said:

Edit: Another quick question... Is the "bBv1.0" folder located on your desktop, or do you just have a desktop *shortcut* that points to the folder's real location? The reason I ask is because your batch file says "set bB=C:\bBv1.0," which suggests that the folder is really located off of the root, and whatever you have on your desktop is just a shortcut to it. I need to know this before I edit your batch file.

Second edit: Also, this could affect what you'd want to set up in the Crimson Editor tool.

Probably, since that bBv1.0 folder is in My Documents and not on the desktop. I don't know why it says it is. Why would the batch file work just fine on 2600IDE if it says that that folder is in the desktop? So should I change the batch file?

[SeaGtGruff]

atari2600land, on Mon Jan 7, 2008 12:47 AM, said:

Why would the batch file work just fine on 2600IDE if it says that that folder is in the desktop?

(1) 2600IDE and batari Basic have separate batch files-- "2600bas.bat" is the name of the batch file used by batari Basic, and "2600baside.bat" is the name of the batch file used by 2600IDE. In theory, they should both contain exactly the same commands. But if you had modified the "2600baside.bat" batch file (or if I had previously modified it for you) so you could get 2600IDE to work with your setup on your computer, then the two batch files might not be identical any more.

(2) The last error message that you posted about said that the "2600bas.bat" file could not be found. That does not mean there was an error inside the batch file; instead, it means that when Crimson Editor tried to run the batch file using the directory path and file name that you'd specified in the tool's "Command" entry field, the batch file was not there.

Judging from the Crimson Editor screenshot you'd posted before, plus your latest comments, I take it that you have your "bBv1.0" folder set up inside your "My Documents" folder, which is displayed on your desktop. Is that correct?

When you open your "My Documents" folder on the desktop, and then open the "bBv1.0" folder inside of that, do you see the "2600bas.bat" file inside of it?

Michael

[SeaGtGruff]

I don't know if this is going to help or not-- we can only try.

Download the attachment and unzip it onto your desktop.

Copy or cut the unzipped "2600bas.bat" file and paste it into your "bBv1.0" folder that's inside your "My Documents" folder.

Copy or cut the unzipped "atari2600land.cmd" file and paste it into the "tools" folder that's inside your "Crimson Editor" folder (which I presume is inside your "bBv1.0" folder).

Start up Crimson Editor and click "Tools" | "Conf. User Tools..."

Inside the "Preferences" popup window, click "Load Tools..."

You should see "atari2600land.cmd" inside the "Load Group of User Tools" popup window. Click on it, then click "Open."

The "Compile bB Program" tool that I set up for you should be loaded, overwriting the one that you'd previously set up. You may or may not be able to see any differences between it and the "Compile bB Program" tool that you had already set up.

Click "OK" to close the "Preferences" popup window, then load one of your bB programs and try to compile it.

Michael

Attached Files

•  atari2600land.zip   1.05K   26 downloads

[atari2600land]

I realized that I hadn't set up Crimson Editor in the bBv1.0 folder, so I did that, and then tried the program you wrote, and I got this:

Could this be due to there being two pairs of quote marks at the beginning and end instead of just one pair?

[SeaGtGruff]

atari2600land, on Tue Jan 8, 2008 12:13 AM, said:

Could this be due to there being two pairs of quote marks at the beginning and end instead of just one pair?

Open the Crimson Editor tool window, and take the quotes off of the beginning and end of the "Command" and "Initial Dir" fields, but leave the quotes around "$(FilePath)." Then save the tool setup and try recompiling again.

Michael

[atari2600land]

SeaGtGruff, on Mon Jan 7, 2008 11:08 PM, said:

Open the Crimson Editor tool window, and take the quotes off of the beginning and end of the "Command" and "Initial Dir" fields, but leave the quotes around "$(FilePath)." Then save the tool setup and try recompiling again.

I did, and got "and was unexpected at this time. Terminated with exit code 255."

[cvga]

Thanks for the advice. I was getting the same error message. Instead of using quotes, I went back and changed my directory names so that they don't have spaces and that worked for me.

[atari2600land]

At last I figured out the mystery as to why this wasn't working. On a whim, I thought I'd try to make another new thingee, only this time using baside.bat instead of bas.bat and voila! It worked! So now I can make .bas files larger than 64k, which won't bring GoSub 2 back from the dead, but I will probably be needing this ability for Asses of Fire.