Is there a text editor for Pico?

I am just wondering how to edit config.txt without having to take the card out and do it on another machine.

I remember there being a version of ‘edit’ (not !Edit) like the one in the Master 128 for ARM in about the Arthur days and I was wondering if that is still about and how hard it might be to make it happy with a modern cpu.

Alternatively is there a port or something like nano or pico that don’t require ansi task windows, extra modules or !Nettle etc.

Whatever happened to ‘Twin’? :-)

I can recall seeing the large ‘Acorn Soft’ plastic case that came in, and using it as my main file editor for some time.

I have a copy of Twin if anyone would like to consider patching it. Still works on SA RPC 4.39.

A quick look shows just one MOVS PC,R14 in a vector handler and two LDM{…}^ which I think are in its task-swapping code so could be ignored for editing use.

Plenty of patch space there as it contains Modula 2 file templates!

Alan: the Edit in the Master 128 ROM was 6502 assembler ;-)

I am just wondering how to edit config.txt without having to take the card out and do it on another machine.

Sounds like an ideal first BASIC project to me. Just what the Pico was made for!

Just fired Twin up on my ARMX6. Apart from the fact that the mode it selects (MODE 0 ISTR, as I also have one I patched back in the day to use MODE 16 for 132 char wide screen) is less than readable on my particular monitor, it does seem to work, load files… I think the vector claimed (WrchV) with the MOVS PC,R14 handler is only claimed when it’s doing its task swapping.

There should be a 32bit BASICEdit/ArmBe in ROOL HardDisk image.
(a module)
Can TWIN be uploaded somewhere – to have a look at fixing.

Please feel free to have a go with this:

http://www.croftnuisk.co.uk/coltsoft-downloads/other/Twin.zip

Remember it’s F2 to load a file, F3 to save, Shift-F4,Enter to exit…

Did anybody ever scan the TWIN Reference Manual?

I’m looking at the binary and it looks like there’s bits of BASIC, Pascal, and… OMG, is that FORTRAN?

Thank you everybody for the responses, particularity for reminding me that it was called Twin and not Edit.
I will have a go with Twin, but it may yet be down to writing something, and I am sure I have written a !Boot editor before now so it may be more a job of looking.

The screen mode fixations of these old editors is a bit problematic, ArmBE on PICO has limitations on what modes you can tell it to use and I have yet to come to some reasonable compromise with it.

I will have a look to see if I still have the manual but chances are not good, it would have come with all the Arthur languages, which were as far as I remember quite a similar set to the Panos languages.

Having looked in the shed, I have located the Twin manual with a photocopy of the key strip, and the original floppy disk. Funnily enough, just for you Rick, the Fortan 77 manual is the only other one I could see!

They will duly be scanned. If anybody recommends somewhere they should go after that it would be appreciated.

I am looking at the pico pi and the floppy disk and thinking those two things don’t go together as well as they might. Hmmm no sharefs either.

Thank goodness for sheds!

Given that it was properly released, the source ought to be in the Acorn Drawing Office – wherever that went!

ROOL has previously mentioned having an archive CD with the Drawing Office stuff, but I have no idea whether it dates back as far as Twin.

As for the scan, 4corn may be willing to host it; there is already a collection of old manuals on there.

Having looked in the shed,

That’s one heck of a shed. Don’t suppose you have the source code to the FileStore lurking in there someplace? ;-)

No, only fs106 I think. Its not the shed it used to be it no longer contains an Edword manual or the Econet drivers for DR DOS on a M512. These things appear to be extinct.

Is this manual any use?

OMG, is that FORTRAN?

Just last year I saw an advert for a FORTRAN programmer and the money was staggering – kinda made me wish I’d picked it instead of LISP as my archaic language of choice..

Isn’t it still used quite a lot by financial/banking programs?

I have only had a brief play with Pico and didn’t get very far…is there a good manual for it, or even a list of available programs for it somewhere?

Nothing wrong with Fortran, it is still the main language of choice for intensive numerical computations, especially for parallel computing applications, although it has changed a lot since the days of FORTRAN 77. It has progressed in stages through Fortran 90/95/2003 and 2008.

Fortran has been my main programming language of choice since selling my BBC Micro in 1989 and buying a Viglen PC because the Acorn Archimedes was too expensive. Now in retirement, I am enjoying using the Raspberry Pi and playing catch up on all the RISC OS stuff that I missed out on. Not sure that I am brave enough yet for Pico.

IEEE Spectrum occasionally publish a chart showing the demand and popularity of various comp languages. FORTRAN still tends to come fairly high.

A good programmer can write FORTRAN in any language ;-)

A FORTRAN IV (none of this modern ’77 stuff) compiler and run-time system was in fact the first thing I worked on for Acornsoft in ’83… never saw the light of day, sadly.

My first language was FORTRAN IV, too. Then EGTRAN…how many folks know what that is/was? (Well, various assembler languages (PDP8, ICL1905e, KDF9) at about the same time, don’t remember the exact order of first meeting them.)

A good programmer can write FORTRAN in any language ;-)

From personal experience I can confirm that BAD programmers like myself can also do that! ;→

Isn’t it still used quite a lot by financial/banking programs?

I am not aware of broad FORTRAN usage in the financial sector, apart maybe from some econometric modelling. FORTRAN is still strong in some scientific branches that need the powerful auto-vectorization available in modern FORTRAN compilers. E.g. climate modelling (although they could just use a random number generator).

Financial/banking/insurance legacy software is mostly COBOL with a bit of PL/I. And increasingly Java (because IBM forces Java usage on their zSeries by not charging for CPU cycles used by Java software).

Fortran.

Memories of being taught programming on the university mainframe – Honeywell I think -using coding pads then waiting for the punched cards and finally getting the output on line paper. Then going through it all again to correct the mistake on the 2nd card or something…

Mind you when the turn around was in days it taught you to be careful