Question about Editor for ROMWBW development

[Steve Garcia]

Hello everyone,

I've been making changes to my local copy of Wayne Warthen's ROMWBW code and I've wondered what others in this group who make changes to ROMWBW (and Wayne himself) use for their editor. I've been using Notepad++ but find it cumbersome in regards to managing the various source code files. For example, how does one find the declaration of a label that's declared in a file other than the one currently being edited?

Any and all input will be appreciated,

Steve Garcia

[Sergey Kiselev]

I am somewhat old school, so I use multiple terminals with multiple vi editors :)

But I'd think you can use an IDE like VS Code with it...

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[Wayne Warthen]

Well, I use Notepad++, so you already use the same thing I do.  😀

I have gotten pretty good at using the extended search features in Notepad++ which allow you to search across files.

-Wayne

[Greg Holdren]

I use Notpadd++ for home and work.

Highlight string to search for.

ctrl-f

In popup window select "Find in Files" tab.

Set you path to the root of source. (it remembers until changed)

Click "Find All" button and it will populate list.  Click on line and it will take you there.

Greg

[Bill Shen]

Thank you guys!  Very helpful tip, I will use Notepad++ more often now.

  Bill

[Steve Garcia]

Thanks guys for all of your responses. Looks like I'm not alone in using Notepad++.

Steve Garcia

[Richard Deane]

A somewhat tongue in cheek question - why do retro enthusiasts worry about the chip purity for retro designs (e.g. cpld or not) and then not actually develop under CP/M using the venerable WordStar or equivalent ? :) 

Richard

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[Tadeusz Pycio]

A somewhat tongue in cheek question - why do retro enthusiasts worry about the chip purity for retro designs (e.g. cpld or not) and then not actually develop under CP/M using the venerable WordStar or equivalent ? :)

It's a question of readability, I often use Turbo Pascal when I'm learning about new chips but ultimately I'm already working on a PC (which is also used as a terminal and is thousands of times more powerful than retro computers ;).

PS. I, for one, use Sublime Text when writing asm programs.

[Sergey Kiselev]

Not all retro enthusiasts worry about the "purity" of design. To many the availability and ease of use of the components and the software are more important.

To give a few examples:

- There are just a few designs that use DRAMs, most use SRAMs. They are easier to interface with, and they are still being manufactured (5V DRAMs are not)

- There are several designs that use microcontrollers as peripherals. Some use ESP32. Some use SBCs such as Raspberry Pi as a terminal. These microcontrollers are more powerful than the late 70's CPUs . RPi is probably 100 times faster than a Z80...

- Several designs use CPLDs and SPLDs. I personally have a few. Bill Shen has some too. Some people don't like programmable logic, often not for the "purity" reasons. From the historical timeline perspective, programmable logic is almost as old as the microprocessors - ZX81 and ZX Spectrum used ULA, which is a programmable logic. There are more practical reasons for not using CPLDs, such as additional, oftentimes, vendor-specific, programming hardware and software required to program these CPLDs; familiarity with HDLs; the fact that CPLDs/SPLDs "hide" the implementation, and their functionality cannot be simply understood by looking at the schematic

- Most modern designs are created using EDA software - schematic capture and PCB layout. I've seen only a few examples of hand-drawn PCBs... The simplicity of EDA software and affordable PCB manufacturing are huge enablers for the current "retro computing" wave

- On the software front, even in olden days, cross development and cross compiling were common. If I recall correctly, Bill Gates and Paul Allen developed their Altair BASIC on a PDP-10 machine. Apparently, PDP-10 was also used by Gary Kildall to develop CP/M

--Sergey

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[Douglas Miller]

For me, the answer is that I tend to bond tightly with whichever editor I am currently using, and switching between different editors is very painful. I originally developed using Magic Wand on CP/M, and used that from about 1979-1990. During part of that time, my "real job" was using Unix and 'vi' and once 'vi' became second-nature for me I had greater and greater difficulty switching back to Magic Wand at home. When I got back into "retro" computing, I could use 'vi' in my sleep and trying to use any other editor under CP/M was just not fun. So, I developed ways to use CP/M tools (RMAC, LINK, etc) under Linux and then used 'vi' to edit source files. This started with simulators and CP/NET, then moved on to a CP/M emulation that worked in Makefiles.

Even back in the day, a programmer's editor was holy ground one dare not tread on. These days, it is "emacs vs. vi" but still a religious war. If I'm not comfortable with "my" editor, I can't program (without excessive cursing and breaking of things).

[Alan Cox]

On Wed, 3 Aug 2022 at 22:46, Richard Deane <rwd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> A somewhat tongue in cheek question - why do retro enthusiasts worry about the chip purity for retro designs (e.g. cpld or not) and then not actually develop under CP/M using the venerable WordStar or equivalent ? :)

Some of us do care.The prototype CP/M 3 for the RC2014 pro can be
built entirely on CP/M. At some point I just need to find time to
polish it a bit and get it releasable. The reason I'm writing an ANSI
C compiler that runs in 48K is similar.

Not only were early customisable logic devices in use by 1981 in large
scale but so were custom chips. While Sinclair used Ferranti ULA
designs Commodore were producing custom chips for their designs, as
were Atari even by 1979. They had a fab for it, today's developers
have FPGA.

Alan

[Richard Deane]

I look forward to getting my hands on the CP/M3 for RC2014 Pro. It seems a glaring gap that plain CP/M 3 is not available, so good luck in your busy schedule with finding time to finish it.

I am happy to try it in beta or release candidate form if you are looking for a wider test audience.

Richard.

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[Bill Shen]

No CPM3 for RC2014?  I thought CPM3 runs in ROMWBW (although I’ve not tried it)?

  Bill

[Karl Albert Brokstad]

CP/M 3 runs on kits with 512k RAM/ROM and ROMWBW.
It runs on the RC2014 zed kits.

Karl

[Richard Deane]

I am interested in a CP/M 3 that runs directly on the hardware. I love Romwbw and its multiple OS systems and have that on several systems, but with respect to comms/interrupts it has that HBIOS isolation layer. I am looking for a cp/m3 system that doesn't use HBIOS, so that  apps can go straight to UART/DART/SIO/ registers. 

Of course it depends how an implementer of CP/M3 handles the I/O, polled or interrupt, as to whether much hacking has to be done to get QTERM and others implemented direct to hw.

Richard

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[Douglas Miller]

Of course, this no longer has anything to do with editors or development of RomWBW, but the other requirement (sort of) for CP/M 3 is banked memory. From what I've seen, there are a lot of different ways of providing banked memory on RC2014 systems. I believe that RomWBW provides banked memory interfaces, so that version of CP/M 3 is fairly independent of the underlying hardware details (RomWBW provides that abstraction). Running CP/M 3 on a 64K system has limited usefulness. RomWBW does not (currently) work well with MP/M - due to console handling - and so versions of that must be written directly to hardware, and specific to hardware configurations. One could write a CP/M 3 BIOS that does not use RomWBW, but you then lose the abstractions and have to target the BIOS to specific configurations. That version of CP/M 3 would not be "universal".

[Tadeusz Pycio]

I am interested in a CP/M 3 that runs directly on the hardware. I love Romwbw and its multiple OS systems and have that on several systems, but with respect to comms/interrupts it has that HBIOS isolation layer. I am looking for a cp/m3 system that doesn't use HBIOS, so that  apps can go straight to UART/DART/SIO/ registers. 

Of course it depends how an implementer of CP/M3 handles the I/O, polled or interrupt, as to whether much hacking has to be done to get QTERM and others implemented direct to hw.

I think running CP/M 3 or MP/M on systems that don't have 128kB RAM misses the point. Yes it is possible, but you lose all the advantages of these operating systems. I have been planning for some time to implement CP/M 3 working directly with hardware, but it will work with the Z180.

[Bill Shen]

I have banked CPM3 running on ZRCC without involving ROMWBW and I also have non-banked CPM3 running on Simple80's 64K RAM.  I do think non-banked CPM3 for RC2014Pro which only has 64K RAM is do-able.  I'm surprised that hasn't been done so perhaps it is worthy of a new topic regarding porting non-banked CPM3 to RC2014Pro.  One advantage of CPM3 is much faster disk operation whether it is banked or non-banked.

  Bill