Filetype for BASIC64/VFP

I should explain what I mean by a sticky …

That sounds quite neat. My method using Basalt and the Toolbox may, or may not, take more effort, but it took less than 30 minutes to put !Basic64 together. ;-)

a small VFP helper (perhaps part of VFPSupport?) that does whatever is necessary for the FP operations not handled in hardware.

Something like my Float/SmartVFP module, perhaps. ;-)

And, as usual, there’s also that little issue of a lack of developer time…

Of course, if enough developer time was here, I’ll never propose such things :)

The idea here is more to say: takes the current FPEmulator and see where you can use VFP instructions. The same way BasicVFP was probably created… So even if the work is not completed (only a few FPE instructions optimised), everyone will begin to see the difference.

IMHO, partial & soon is always better than complete & never.
But I understand too people saying that ‘partial’ takes time and will delay even more the ‘complete’ thing.

Instead of another filetype which would require that any editors which load basic programs be modified why not change the loadtype and runtype to

set alias$@LoadType_FFB if "%%0" RIGHT 3 = "_64" then Basic64 -load "%%0" %%*1 else  Basic -load "%%0" %%*1
set alias$@RunType_FFB if "%%0" RIGHT 3 = "_64" then Basic64 -quit "%%0" %%*1 else  Basic -quit "%%0" %%*1

Then if you want to use BASIC64 with a double click you just add _64 to the filename.

Then if you want to use BASIC64 with a double click you just add _64 to the filename.

That is a very good idea and I tried to do it, but got my ‘%’ in a twist. ;-(

It still has the problem of the possible content of a file being identical for both BASIC V and BASIC VI.

For what it’s worth, I have updated !Basic64 to run in a TaskWindow if Shift is held, or force BASICVFP if Control is held.

I should have said that the lines were cut and pasted from an obey file so you need to run them from an obey file.

Then if you want to use BASIC64 with a double click you just add _64 to the filename.

Hmm, adding three characters at the end of the name to denote the filetype…
Why do I get the feeling I may have seen that before somewhere?

Hey, we could make the system hide the last three characters denoting filetype too.

You can get !TaskW, and so stick , from here .

Just out of interest – is there any sort of “test suite” to verify the FP behaviour on the various incarnations of BASIC?

I wrote a few test programs while working on BASICVFP – you can find them in CVS. They should all run under all three variants of BASIC, and some may even run on 6502 versions of BASIC if you’re lucky. None of them are a comprehensive FP test suite, but some of them are designed to focus on a few specific problem areas.

https://www.riscosopen.org/viewer/view/castle/RiscOS/Sources/Programmer/BASIC/Tests/

• Math.Array – test correctness & performance of the array operations (against the equivalent scalar ops)
• Math.AtPercent – test accuracy and formatting of numbers. For 5-byte basic it performs the decimal conversion manually (using a string to store the full decimal value, prior to rounding), for 8-byte it cheats and relies on FPEmulator to convert to packed decimal (since the higher exponent range means large numbers would be longer than BASIC strings allowed)
• Math.Decimal – Float → string → float round-trip testing
• Math.ELLIPSE – Because I found that BASIC64’s ELLIPSE command had never worked due to some broken math :-)
• There’s also CALL, which does some basic testing of the internal routines that BASIC exposes via the CALL environment block. Mainly to check for register usage (since the old BASIC manual was a bit light on details in a few places)

Dudes,

&AA5 TskBasic

Allocated some time ago. Does work. New version to be released soon (now works correctly outside the desktop).

TskBasic is actually the most useful form of stand-alone BASIC program, as it checks its environment:

• Double-clicked – runs in a TaskWindow
• Run from TaskWindow – runs in that TaskWindow
• Run from Switcher menu – runs in a TaskWindow
• Run at the command line – runs immediately (just like BASIC)

Especially useful for library commands and textual tools.

These are local filetypes, for local people

There’s no shortage of filetypes. Programmers should not have to be starting every program with “It’s the wrong version, Gromit” switcheroo code.

If you’re using an incompatible feature, lets declare it super-early with a language construct that

• Unambiguously states the interpreter required
• Allows ‘new’ BASICs to switcheroo transparently
• Goes wrong really quickly on old BASICs if you don’t have the right filetype

nemo style

9/10 for that. I’d have used &8200 but YMMV.

Aside: Martin said

A TaskBASIC filetype would be useful to me on occasions … but unfortunately it will not work, as it is over the 8 character maximum! The necessary abbreviation would put me off.

There’s little constraining filetype names but convention – the ancient Service Call is so totally obsolete it could be excised without anyone noticing (and if anyone did, one quick *Set and it’s fixed).

Many apps will truncate the filetype when displayed in an info window, but that’s only a presentation problem, and usually fixable with a template tweak. Obviously Filer would need some adjustment.

The fact is you can already *Set File$Type_FFF This is a text file and nothing blows up (at least not here on the Nautilus).

However…

The better fix is usually to introduce an alternative. One of my experimental Filers uses File$Desc_###

Set File$Type_F98 PhotoShp
Set File$Desc_F98 Adobe Photoshop image
Set File$Type_FD6 TaskExec
Set File$Desc_FD6 Exec file in a TaskWindow

etc. And I commend it to the house.
(It does have to be localised though)

There’s no shortage of filetypes.

I had forgotten, but back in the days of inter-networked Beebs and Arcs you would see quite a few different BASIC “filetypes”:

F0E  BasicIV  BBC Master 128 Basic
F12  BasicNt  BBC Micro Basic (NFS)
F19  BasicII  BBC Micro Basic (ANFS)

(Actually, I think F0E was supposed to be “Econet utility”, but I never saw one of those in the wild, and what use would it be for an Arc anyway? The various BASICs were much more useful).

No prizes for working out why they had those filetypes. Oh, I found the icons too: