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charlie

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Jun 18, 2007, 7:37:45 PM6/18/07
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hi all, i have recently decided that gfa was not a suffienct language
to program with and have since then made a change to pascal...good
grief what a tangled mess!!!!!!! , but........
if any one is willing ,who reads this,and can offer advice in any way
shape or form .... towards a practical approch to pascal programming
on the atari , i will gladly accept...

a little reference and guidence needed

thanks
charles

Message has been deleted

Guillaume Tello

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Jun 19, 2007, 3:29:07 AM6/19/07
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"charlie" <charle...@sympatico.ca> a écrit dans le message de news:
1182209889.1...@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...

> hi all, i have recently decided that gfa was not a suffienct language
> to program with and have since then made a change to pascal...good
> grief what a tangled mess!!!!!!! , but........
> if any one is willing ,who reads this,and can offer advice in any way
> shape or form .... towards a practical approch to pascal programming
> on the atari , i will gladly accept...

The only pascal I saw was the Pure Pascal, long time ago!
It's a very old one, 20 years ago it could look as a serious development
system, but now, it's obsolete.
The editor used to reserve 80 bytes for each line, whatever was typed
in. So this limited the size of the edited program!

But, if anyone else has "newer news"...

Guillaume.


Message has been deleted

Jo Even Skarstein

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Jun 19, 2007, 4:16:16 PM6/19/07
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charlie <charle...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> if any one is willing ,who reads this,and can offer advice in any way
> shape or form .... towards a practical approch to pascal programming
> on the atari , i will gladly accept...

I used to program quite a bit in Pascal at university. At that time I only
had my Falcon and did a lot of programming using High Speed Pascal. This
is a fairly good Turbo Pascal clone, it even has BGI libraries. It also
has GEM and AES libraries, so you can develop GEM applications if you
want. Unline Pure Pascal (which I don't have any experience with) it
doesn't support the OO extensions in later versions of Turbo Pascal.

--

/*
** Jo Even Skarstein http://joska.nvg.org/
*/

Coda

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Jun 19, 2007, 6:09:27 PM6/19/07
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I would say, forget Pascal. It was designed as a tool to teach
programming, hence the reason why it is (or was) so present in schools
and uni's. Of course there were some great app's written in Pascal,
just as in any language, but you are much better off learning C.
That's of course if you really don't want to stick with GFA, which is
actually a quite flexible and powerful language.

If you want to program C on the Atari, I think there are these choices
today:

1. Hisoft C. Interpreted C, but compiler is available. Obsolete, and
no support anywhere, AFAIK. I don't know anyone using this today.
2. Lattice C. (Also by hisoft). Professional and almost complete C
compiler with some C++ syntax. Obsolete, no support, but fairly
comprehensive manuals. Some Atari programmers still use it (me
included) so answers to tricky problems can still be found (the
archive of the CSASP newsgroup is useful). Can sometimes be found for
sale on ebay, and some Atari vendors may still sell it.
3. Pure C. Unless you speak German, there is no documentation, apart
from a small English introduction and basic usage guide. Quite a few
Atari programmers still use Pure C though. I think HDDriver is written
in Pure C. There are good libraries available for Pure C (Godlib
springs to mind).
4. Gnu C/C++. You need a MiNT installation to use this, and some
knowledge of how to work in a Unix environment. Quite a few developers
use this package, a lot of dev is done with GNU C, not only on Atari,
but also on every unix platform in the world, and others (its even
available for windows, but the unix version can still build windows
binaries!). If you want future compatibility, or to port code from
other platforms this is the one to go for. Atari libraries are
available.

Good luck.


Guillaume Tello

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Jun 20, 2007, 6:42:54 AM6/20/07
to

"Coda" <jan....@gmail.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
1182290967.3...@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com...

> 4. Gnu C/C++. You need a MiNT installation to use this,

I use it with a single TOS and the GNU Shell written by Olivier
Landemarre.

Guillaume.


Joe Iron

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Jun 20, 2007, 9:34:35 AM6/20/07
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Guillaume Tello írta:

Can you send me your complete develop environment as zip file?

Coda

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Jun 20, 2007, 11:49:06 AM6/20/07
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On Jun 20, 12:42 pm, "Guillaume Tello" <houten....@wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> "Coda" <jan.ho...@gmail.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
> 1182290967.380365.145...@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com...

>
> > 4. Gnu C/C++. You need a MiNT installation to use this,
>
> I use it with a single TOS and the GNU Shell written by Olivier
> Landemarre.
>
> Guillaume.

Nice. Didn't know about that.

Gerhard Stoll

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Jun 19, 2007, 2:06:00 PM6/19/07
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> The only pascal I saw was the Pure Pascal, long time ago!

There is also MAXON-Pascal, ST-Pascal, Prospero Pascal.

> It's a very old one, 20 years ago

Sure that you mean Pure Pascal? The last version that I have is form
1995-06-31. Texel and CAB are make with Pure Pascal.

Gerhard

Francois LE COAT

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Jun 20, 2007, 12:27:31 PM6/20/07
to
Hi,

You can have a look at "Alice Pascal" from its author page

<http://www.templetons.com/brad/alice.html>

I guess it is a good entry point in that matter :-)

Best regards,

--
François LE COAT
Author of Eureka 2.12 (2D Graph Describer, 3D Modeller)
http://eureka.atari.org/

Gerhard Stoll wrote :

Guillaume Tello

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Jun 20, 2007, 12:48:36 PM6/20/07
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"Gerhard Stoll" <Gerhar...@b.maus.de> a écrit dans le message de news:
200706192...@b.maus.de...

Yes, I meant it. But I didn't know that it had evoluted.
Now I know it!

Guillaume.


Guillaume Tello

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Jun 20, 2007, 12:54:14 PM6/20/07
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"Joe Iron" <vas.j...@karatnet.hu> a écrit dans le message de news:
1182346475.2...@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...


Sure, I put it on my page:
http://perso.orange.fr/gtello/gnu_tos.zip

7 Mb...

It's the copy of the folder that was located on disk N:, so
N:\GCC\etc... You may have to change some paths.
The shell itself is:
N:\GCC\TOOLS\GCCSHELL\GCCSHELL.APP

Depending on your video system, you'll have to update (or not) the
SCREEN.LDG (the same as the one used with MyAES).

It's been some months since I used it for the last time, I'll try to
help if I can, or I'll redirect your questions to Olivier if I can't answer
myself.

Guillaume.


Rod Smith

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Jun 21, 2007, 10:39:49 AM6/21/07
to
In article <1182209889.1...@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,

charlie <charle...@sympatico.ca> writes:
>
> hi all, i have recently decided that gfa was not a suffienct language
> to program with and have since then made a change to pascal...good
> grief what a tangled mess!!!!!!! , but........
> if any one is willing ,who reads this,and can offer advice in any way
> shape or form .... towards a practical approch to pascal programming
> on the atari , i will gladly accept...
>
> a little reference and guidence needed

Back in 1986 or 1987, I bought Personal Pascal from OSS for my Atari 520ST
and made heavy use of it for several years. At the time I found it quite
adequate, but I'm not sure how it stacks up today against other Pascal
compilers for the ST. One oddity about it is that it includes GEM
interfaces, but it modified and simplified the standard GEM interfaces.
Thus, if you learn GEM programming via Personal Pascal, you'll have to
re-learn it if you subsequently change to another language. Personal
Pascal's GEM interfaces are odd in that they let you build dialog boxes,
menus, etc., without using a resource editor, which is a requirement of
most other ST languages. If you've got a separate resource editor, you can
still use it; but if not you'll have to code dialog boxes, etc., by hand
in the main program.

For learning Pascal generally (particularly an older one like Personal
Pascal), I can heartily recommend the book _Oh! Pascal!, 2nd Edition_
(1985) by Doug Cooper and Michael Clancy (ISBN 0-393-95445-5). Checking
Amazon.com, it seems that the book is long out of print and hasn't been
updated in a while, but it's extremely well-written. Amazon has links to
used copies for as little as $0.01 (plus $3.99 shipping!).

Others have suggested bypassing Pascal in favor of another language, such
as C. There's something to be said for this, particularly if you want to
learn something that'll translate into marketable job skills. IMHO,
Pascal's main limitation is in its memory handling -- or at least, that
was the case ~20 years ago. (I've not programmed in Pascal in over a
decade.) C gives you much more flexibility on that score. OTOH, C is also
a much "looser" language (not just in memory handling), which means it's
much easier to dig yourself a deep, dark, bug-filled hole in C than in
Pascal. If you're a relative programming novice, starting with Pascal will
let you write working programs with less pain and learn good programming
techniques in the process; but if you've been programming for a while and
understand the basics of things like functions, control loops, recursion,
memory management, etc., C will give you more power. Another factor: There
are programming trends and techniques that change over time. Pascal and C
both predate some important modern programming techniques, such as
object-oriented (OO) programming, so you won't learn OO programming with
Pascal. Many modern languages, such as C++, are OO languages. (C++ is an
extension of C, so if you learn C, learning C++ becomes easier.)

--
Rod Smith, rods...@rodsbooks.com
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux, FreeBSD, and networking

charlie

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Jun 21, 2007, 8:29:10 PM6/21/07
to
i surely accept this input guuys,,,especially rod...so far pascal
isn't that bad and most commands are similar to that of which i carry
up from basic.
but i should remain true to my objective and that is to learn and
obtain knowledge of the language i have choosen, basic was good to
learn program flow , command words along with identification of
variables,and ,strings ....
now pascal has shows areas of libraries , stronger program flow
methods ...quicker procedure ,,,,i guess i'd like to enjoy a steady
learning pace,,,and not jump right in the pointer filled land scape of
'c'
a little about myself , i picked up programming four or five years ago
so i am relitivealy new!!!! having no ideal a symbol from a pointer
from a variable,
sorting this shuffled mess has been quite a task , thanks for
expressing enough interest to guide me past the "nooks" and "cran-ies"
of programming ...i will eventually progress , even if it's years
ahead.


charles


Jammer

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Jun 22, 2007, 5:37:36 AM6/22/07
to
I've got Personal Pascal if you like, it was on a cover disk years ago.
Looks like all the program files are there, few docs, some code samples.
Cheers

Guillaume Tello

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Jun 22, 2007, 7:37:03 AM6/22/07
to
Well, I'd like to know what the compatibility of those different
development systems with the ST serie?
Do they run with a 68030?
Do they support MINT?
Do they support other resolutions than the ST standard ones?

Guillaume.


Message has been deleted

Guillaume Tello

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Jun 22, 2007, 2:21:15 PM6/22/07
to

"lp" <gfa-...@mint.net> a écrit dans le message de news:
C2A1610A.1060C%gfa-...@mint.net...

> I don't think you will necessarily end up with quicker procedures, in some
> cases GFA rivals "C" in speed. Unless you meant quicker to write?

If I remember well, GFA has a special way to encode the floating values
and uses high speed routines for floating point operations. If a standard
IEEE encoding is not needed, then GFA gives you a real power in that way.
Well, if you have a FPU... then "C" is better!

Guillaume.


Jo Even Skarstein

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Jun 22, 2007, 3:37:24 PM6/22/07
to
Rod Smith <rods...@nessus.rodsbooks.com> wrote:
> memory management, etc., C will give you more power. Another factor: There
> are programming trends and techniques that change over time. Pascal and C
> both predate some important modern programming techniques, such as
> object-oriented (OO) programming, so you won't learn OO programming with
> Pascal. Many modern languages, such as C++, are OO languages. (C++ is an

OO originates from Simula in the 60's, so the concept has been around for
decades. There are object oriented Pascal-variants, and IIRC Pure Pascal
is one of them. I haven't used Pure Pascal myself, but from what I've
heard it's pretty similar to the earlier object oriented versions of Turbo

Message has been deleted

Gerhard Stoll

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Jun 23, 2007, 1:26:00 AM6/23/07
to
> I think also strings in Pascal are limited to 256 characters.

254 Bytes.

Gerhard

PeP

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Jun 23, 2007, 1:38:26 PM6/23/07
to
> I don't think you will necessarily end up with quicker procedures, in some
> cases GFA rivals "C" in speed. Unless you meant quicker to write?

Out of curiousity - which cases are that?

-- Peter

Daniel Mandic

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Jun 24, 2007, 8:23:39 AM6/24/07
to
PeP wrote:


Hi Peter!


Out of curiousity, I am totally crap at programming. :-)

I think it was mentioned before, that C is not so developed on ST/TT as
GFA-Basic is. It's like the older ROM Basic on various 8bitter, some
commands can't be faster, not even in Assembler. (obviously a tough
compiler, going with GFA, IMHO.)

Although, I find the ST/TT/and higher CPU is one of the best for
Assembler programming. Beginning with the 68000 (32bit), of course :-)

Well, as I said I know very less about coding, I would go with
GFA-Basic, indeed. And Assembler, if it were my primary-time
hobby/fun/work etc.

Best Regards,

Daniel Mandic

Message has been deleted

PeP

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Jun 25, 2007, 2:34:49 AM6/25/07
to
> I don't know specifics. One would have to dig out all the old GFA reviews
> in the old magazines where it was benchmarked against other basics and other
> languages.

I see.. Funny. I haven't looked at PureC/Lattice, but I often study
the assembler code generated by GCC just to be on the safe side. With
optimizations enabled, I often find it hard to beat the compiler by
hand... Anyway, judging by the applications created using it, the GFA
compiler is a lot faster than people might think.

-- Peter

PeP

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Jun 25, 2007, 2:43:52 AM6/25/07
to
> I think it was mentioned before, that C is not so developed on ST/TT as
> GFA-Basic is. It's like the older ROM Basic on various 8bitter, some
> commands can't be faster, not even in Assembler. (obviously a tough
> compiler, going with GFA, IMHO.)

Not sure I agree; GCC is one of the better compilers around imho..

> Although, I find the ST/TT/and higher CPU is one of the best for
> Assembler programming. Beginning with the 68000 (32bit), of course :-)

68000 assembler is really pretty, yes.

> Well, as I said I know very less about coding, I would go with
> GFA-Basic, indeed. And Assembler, if it were my primary-time
> hobby/fun/work etc.

Personally I'd go for C and assembler, but many talented coders have
proven that GFA is a fast and flexible language. If you're using a
multitasking OS, try Lonnys' GBE environment. Truly amazing work.

-- Peter

Daniel Mandic

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Jun 25, 2007, 9:11:19 AM6/25/07
to
PeP wrote:

> 68000 assembler is really pretty, yes.

Yes, there are something like (real) register :). Not to mention the
forward compatibility, e.g. the AMIGA OS was written in Assembler and
C, already with 32bit. A 020-060 can then run the same code, just with
32bit RAM access (if available) instead of 16, or even 8 (68008).



> Personally I'd go for C and assembler, but many talented coders have
> proven that GFA is a fast and flexible language. If you're using a
> multitasking OS, try Lonnys' GBE environment. Truly amazing work.

Oh well, I thought there is nothing good C for ST line.

>
> -- Peter

Best regards,

Daniel Mandic

Message has been deleted

charlie

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Jun 26, 2007, 5:51:47 PM6/26/07
to
On Jun 22, 8:20 am, lp <gfa-ba...@mint.net> wrote:
> in article 1182472150.879200.275...@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com, charlie
> wrote on 6/21/07 8:29 PM:

>
> > i surely accept this input guuys,,,especially rod...so far pascal
> > isn't that bad and most commands are similar to that of which i carry
> > up from basic.
> > but i should remain true to my objective and that is to learn and
> > obtain knowledge of the language i have choosen, basic was good to
> > learn program flow , command words along with identification of
> > variables,and ,strings ....
> > now pascal has shows areas of libraries , stronger program flow
> > methods ...quicker procedure ,,,,i guess i'd like to enjoy a steady
> > learning pace,,,and not jump right in the pointer filled land scape of
> > 'c'
>
> I don't think you will necessarily end up with quicker procedures, in some
> cases GFA rivals "C" in speed. Unless you meant quicker to write?
>
> I think also strings in Pascal are limited to 256 characters. If you want
> or need strings over that size, you will probably end up using memory blocks
> and pointers. :o)
>
> --
> FreeMiNT http://sparemint.atariforge.net/sparemint/[Free your mind...]
> Atari Team http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_display.php?teamid=30472
> L. Pursell http://www.bright.net/~gfabasic/[AtarIRC, GFA-Basic, Hades060]

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
lonny , i love pointers and memory blocks...never used memory blocks ,
but i suppose thats the same as dimension-ing an area of memory .
pointers within gfa are my favorite ....*a$ ,,,eh?
is a memory block a reserved area of space ?space for each char value?
1-byte , 2 - word -4 integer,8...16 etc etc for as many

any how keep in mind i'm still learning with little holding me back
from experimenting...by the way , i think i may go back to gfa or
omikron, cause pascal is very bad mannered at the moment.

charles

[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[

Joe Iron

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Jul 2, 2007, 9:51:18 AM7/2/07
to

Guillaume Tello írta:

Hi Guillaume,

I had the opportunity to try your enviroment under steem. Compiling/
linking the demo.c works great. But when I try the same for demo.cc I
always get two bombs when linking. Do you have any idea what is the
problem? Steem is configured to use tos2.06 with 14MB of memory. I
updated the inf files with the correct paths.
Can you please explain what are those LDG files and how to update
them? Do they affect the linking process? Shall I install something in
the AUTO folder?

Thanks,
Jozsi

Guillaume Tello

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Jul 3, 2007, 11:22:28 AM7/3/07
to

"Joe Iron" <vas.j...@karatnet.hu> a écrit dans le message de news:
1183384278....@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...

>Hi Guillaume,

>I had the opportunity to try your enviroment under steem. Compiling/
>linking the demo.c works great. But when I try the same for demo.cc I
>always get two bombs when linking. Do you have any idea what is the
>problem? Steem is configured to use tos2.06 with 14MB of memory. I
>updated the inf files with the correct paths.
>Can you please explain what are those LDG files and how to update
>them? Do they affect the linking process? Shall I install something in
>the AUTO folder?

No the SCREEN.LDG doesn't affect the linking. If the shell starts with
the background image, then the LDG runs correctly: it's only a collection of
graphic routines.

The problem should be in the linker itself. Does it use other opcodes
than de 68000 ones? (I don't know what processor steem emulates).

Being not a specialist of GCC, I can't help you more.
I mostly used it to compile the MPEG2 routines and then, step by step,
convert them in assembler.

Guillaume.


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