New starter documentation

It’s actually slightly more logical than it seems… commands can be abbreviated with a full stop, so you can write *RMReInit as *RMRe. and *Help as *He. There’s an ordering that commands are searched for, so that it runs down the list until the abbreviated prefix matches something. It just so happens that *Cat is on top of the list so the 0-character abbreviation is *.
This is actually deliberate, because you spend a lot of time typing the catalogue command (DIR or ls or *Cat).

/Foo is something else… it means run the executable on disc called Foo rather than the builtin command. So /Help runs something off disc not the usual help command. It’s not strictly necessary if you know that a builtin command doesn’t exist, but is good practice.

And there’s %Command, which bypasses the aliases system. You can set a system variable called Alias$MyCommand such that *MyCommand will run whatever’s indicated by the alias… for example
*Set Alias$cc gcc %*0
means that ‘cc’ is completely replaced by ‘gcc’ (and %*0 means ‘pass on all the parameters’). If you want to get at the real command called ‘cc’ then you call ‘%cc’ instead.

In case it’s helpful for this project, the test harness for my Treeview Toolbox gadget will generate an interactive display of a directory structure – you can expand / collapse individual subdirectories and scroll to any part of the tree.

Download the “developer pack” from http://www.btinternet.com/~rik.griffin/gadgets.html then extract the contents. Run the !Harness application, and just drop the !Boot directory into the main window.

Watch out for the copyright on that image Trevor – it is a ROL document…

So here’s one that isn’t copyright ROOL, produced by this BASIC programme – it is an A3 draw file 294k in size as the image below:

So here’s one that isn’t copyright ROOL,

Now revised as a PDF here produced using this BASIC programme (requires MakeDraw as provided on Pi) here

Edited 08:30 19th July to add essential missing file to BootHow.zip

Now that a link to the manual that describes version 1.05 of BBC BASIC is included on the Pi, it would be nice to have a description of what changes have been included now that BASIC is at version 1.52.

DIM foo% LOCAL value
TRACE ENDPROC
etc.

Not sure how to extract this from the CVS in a form that will suit – in the manual it describes exactly which changes appeared in which version of BASIC (up to BASIC V ver 1.05).

version 1.05 of BBC BASIC

Shouldn’t it really be named “ARM BBC BASIC”, or did Beebs use versions <1.0? OK, “BASIC V, version 1.04 Developed for Acorn RISC computers”. Sorry for the waffle.

The boot process has evolved with the version of the OS. I have a dim memory of a nice drawfile that illustrated its several stages.

Gavin,
So far I have got the RISC OS 5.19 boot structure described here (an ArtWorks file, and included on the Pi disc image) – any suggestions please for adding more that will not make it too complex for the likely audience, someone new to RISC OS?

To Trevor Johnson No. 329: I note you mention Cat_Draw. I would be happy to send you my original © source code, for that, if you wanted:-) I am now correspondent No. 1913, in RISC OS OPEN. Sorry! I hadn’t realised that my Draw_Gen module, was now out of date:-( Martin.

P.S. That’s meant to be ‘C’ NOT ©.

I have now ‘32-bitted’ my application: !Cat_Draw, and the updated version 2.00, dated 22nd February 2013, is available for download from my web site. Martin.

P.S. That’s meant to be ‘C’ NOT ©.

You can go back and correct it with an ‘edit post’

… is available for download from my web site.

Which is where?

Which is where?

martin carradus cat_draw in google works quite well, first link in fact. :-P

For others ease here it is: http://www.martinkd.freeuk.com/cat_draw.html

@Chris
That one doesn’t work on my Iyonix 5.18

Internal Error, trap while in trap handler:
Unknown OS_PlatformFeatures reason code,
pc=FC15F560: registers at 0000DF34

Or have I got something conflicting?

This ‘OS_PlatformFeatures’ bug, was pointed out to me by Vince Hudd, recently (June/July). He was having trouble on the ‘Raspberry’. It appears that it was the ‘Banner’ Panel-running ‘C’ code, that was using a library that had not been 32-bitted. (The ‘Platform Features’ it was trying to get hold of, were the Screen ‘Eigenvalues’.) I ended up buying the Raspberry ‘C’ compiler, together with its 32-bit ‘Link’ libraries, and completely recompiling ALL my software, which can be downloaded, for free, from my two sites: http://www.martinkd.freeuk.com and http://www.leaf.mindcraft.freeuk.com . In the process, I updated my ‘DrawGen’ module to 32-bit, that is used in my applications !Cat_Draw (Draw File version of directory catalogue), !Text_Draw (Draw File version of supplied Text File), and !BBC_Draw (Draw File Jackson structure diagram of supplied BBC Basic program file). It STILL ain’t all quite right, but I did the best I could with it:-) Regards, Martin.