16 replies to this topic

[spookt]

Hey - gotta love providence. I was patiently scanning through this a page at a time on my flatbed when guess what rolls up in the office? A brand spanking new colour copier / fax / digital sender / laser printer ! OK, I entrusted the manual to the sheet feed, tapped in my email address and ... presto PDF file. (Well actually 14 PDF files with 10 pages in each - need to find that setting and change it) And no bleed through !

So after stitching it together and having made a quick check here at last is the complete PL65 Programming Manual:

 PL65.pdf   6.08MB   81 downloads

Happy reading !

Edited by spookt, Thu Jan 22, 2009 7:29 AM.

[spookt]

Oops, uploaded this in a hurry. Didn't realise it was 6Mb ! Here's a zipped version (roughly half the download size):

 PL65.pdf.zip   3.19MB   54 downloads

[UNIXcoffee928]

WOW, this language looks cool! I wish that I had known about this language when it came out!

& the editor looks like it would be great...

Can someone post the ATR of the last version? I presume that there is a non-copy protected version out there, right?

Are there any additional toolkits, user contributed libraries, or example source listings out there?

[spookt]

It's here.

I have an original disk from the same collection as the manual but it's bad - boots to the menu but the editor doesn't load

If anyone wants a label scan for that true authentic looks gimme a shout

[Tickled_Pink]

I don't believe it. I'm not alone!!

I've got the original disk and a happied backup somewhere (both still worked last time I tried them). Unfortunately it looked like my parents threw out the manual before I could retrieve it, so I'm sooo happy someone else has scanned it.

And how the hell did I miss this old thread? Didn't know that someone had actually cracked PL65, presumably from one of the uncracked/half cracked disk images I posted some time ago?

PL65 is my favourite 8-bit language. The compiler is a little slow because it seems to work its way compiling a function/procedure at a time before saving it, producing a compound file as it goes. If anyone could come up with a tool to convert the compound file into one contiguous block so that it could be run from a ROM cart then that would be 0

If anyone seriously wants to have a go at the language and needs any help then feel free to PM me. Although I haven't access to my 8-bits at the minute, I used this language so much that I should be able to remember most of it. It was my first introduction to pointers, long before I came across C/C++.

Edited by Tickled_Pink, Thu Jan 22, 2009 6:51 PM.

[MrFish]

@ spookt: Thanks a lot for scanning the manual! I'd never heard of this language before. I assumed I had the disk for it, but alas not to be. Good to see that the program has been cracked already. I didn't catch the thread about that being done before either.

The language looks great. On first review, it looks to be much better than Turbo-BASIC XL. No line numbers, PMG Library, Assembly functions, better constructs/functionality, etc.

@ Tickled_Pink: In the PL65 Cracked thread, the author of the language claims to have written a defragmenter for the executables. Unfortunately he says, "God knows if you would ever find this".

BTW: Now I know why you said, "I can't vote. My primary language has never been any of those." in the Programming Languages Poll. I thought you were making a joke, as I had assumed I hadn't forgotten any major languages (arrogant). You may soon have more company in your language choice.

Edited by MrFish, Fri Jan 23, 2009 12:34 AM.

[dwhyte]

OPTION-ESC...

Finally now I know how to exit the editor!!!



Many thanks spookt for taking the time to scan this manual...

[Tickled_Pink]

MrFish, on Fri Jan 23, 2009 6:23 AM, said:

@ Tickled_Pink: In the PL65 Cracked thread, the author of the language claims to have written a defragmenter for the executables. Unfortunately he says, "God knows if you would ever find this".

The guy who made the post wasn't the author (and didn't claim to be). I remember writing a letter to Noahsoft once and got a reply from someone with an Eastern European surname.

I might have a stab at doing a similar program myself. Wanted to do one for years but never got around to it. As it's all just stripping headers, it can't be too difficult to do.

[Fujix]

Spookt: many thanks for PDFing and posting the manual.

Tickled_pink: yes, I cracked and posted PL65 using one of your images -- for which, thank you.

Now we can all enjoy what is surely the most obscure of the available 8-bit languages...

[Tickled_Pink]

How did you crack it in the end? Do you remember what you did? When I made my attempt I only half did the job - I could get the compiler to load and run, but anything I tried compiling with it wouldn't run.

[ddez]

I had problems with compiled programs not running with the cracked PL65 version from the other thread.

What I found is that there is code (Location $3637) that runs when you press 1 to start the compiler, this code does a checksum of the copy protection code. Since the copy protection code was modifed to bypass the bad sector check the checksum no longer matches. This in turn triggers code at $3649 that XORs the first $80 bytes of the runtime with $AA rendering the compiled program unusable.

The version in the attached ATR has all of the code mentioned above removed and produces compiled code that runs now.

Attached Files

•  pl65fix.zip   33.17K   50 downloads

[MrFish]

Completely bookmarked now... EDIT: i forgot to say, text searchable too...
 PL65___Manual.pdf   6.47MB   61 downloads

Edited by MrFish, Sat Jan 24, 2009 7:41 PM.

[flashjazzcat]

MrFish, on Sun Jan 25, 2009 12:58 AM, said:

Completely bookmarked now...
PL65___Manual.pdf

Great work! This looks like a really intriguing language.

[spookt]

MrFish, on Sun Jan 25, 2009 12:58 AM, said:

Completely bookmarked now... EDIT: i forgot to say, text searchable too...
PL65___Manual.pdf

Excellent! Thanks. I was intending to go back and do that this week but you've saved me some work.

[MrFish]

A few corrections:  PL65___Manual.pdf   6.48MB   65 downloads

[MrFish]

ddez, on Sat Jan 24, 2009 2:29 PM, said:

I had problems with compiled programs not running with the cracked PL65 version from the other thread.

What I found is that there is code (Location $3637) that runs when you press 1 to start the compiler, this code does a checksum of the copy protection code. Since the copy protection code was modifed to bypass the bad sector check the checksum no longer matches. This in turn triggers code at $3649 that XORs the first $80 bytes of the runtime with $AA rendering the compiled program unusable.

The version in the attached ATR has all of the code mentioned above removed and produces compiled code that runs now.

Yes, compiled programs run now. Great work! Many thanks.

Edited by MrFish, Sun Jan 25, 2009 3:54 PM.

[Tickled_Pink]

ddez, on Sat Jan 24, 2009 10:29 PM, said:

I had problems with compiled programs not running with the cracked PL65 version from the other thread.

What I found is that there is code (Location $3637) that runs when you press 1 to start the compiler, this code does a checksum of the copy protection code. Since the copy protection code was modifed to bypass the bad sector check the checksum no longer matches. This in turn triggers code at $3649 that XORs the first $80 bytes of the runtime with $AA rendering the compiled program unusable.

The version in the attached ATR has all of the code mentioned above removed and produces compiled code that runs now.

That's great. I suspected that something was affecting the runtime code rather than the user compiled program.

Nice to see a few interested people downloading the manual too.


BTW: Can't remember if this is in the manual, but here's a little tip. If you're finding the compilation process a little slow and just want to do some syntax checking, just type in the source filename and press return for all the others the compiler prompts for. That way it'll just read the source, compile it, but won't save anything to disk.

Edited by Tickled_Pink, Wed Jan 28, 2009 1:02 PM.