[Coco] Portal-9 1.2

[Roger Taylor]

I just boosted Portal-9 up a notch.  Version 1.2 should be ready in a few days.

Now you'll be able to create massive software on ROM or virtual disk since 
each file in the project can be built onto a different image.  I started 
this as a way to avoid having to create a new project for each disk meant 
to be part of a single software title, etc.

As an example, I have easily set up the Projector-3 project to also build a 
demo picture disk.  How easy was this?
10 short steps in this case:

I loaded the Projector-3 project (projector-3.por).
I clicked on "Add Binary Component".
I browsed to a file called "6809cpu.bmp" in my picture directory.
The file got its own Hex editor class window and was added to the project.
For this file, I typed into the 'disk image name' field on the left panel, 
"pics".
I clicked Go.  The project built with a readout telling me everything going on.
M.E.S.S. popped up with Drive 0 mounted with p3.dsk, and Drive 1 mounted 
with pics.dsk
I typed RUN "BOOT" and P-3 fired up.
When P-3 started, I hit the "1" key, and the Drive 1 directory showed up 
with my picture in it.
I hit ENTER and the picture loaded and displayed.

Now those steps are reduced to 5 because the project state has been saved 
automatically (or manually) after I added the other project components I 
wanted (the picture and it's own disk).  So when I reload the P-3 project, 
I can just click Go!

This is only a light example of what is possible and extremely easy to 
do.  I've automated almost everything.  You can easily add new virtual disk 
names into the list and route each project component to it's own disk, to 
create any number of disks.  However, if you're automatically launching and 
mounting your images in M.E.S.S., it is wise to only create a 2-disk 
project... even though 4 can be mounted.

Another example out of 1,000 that comes to mind is the easy ability to 
build a bunch of ROM programs onto virtual disk(s), so that when ran from a 
real CoCo, you could burn them to EPROM using CoCo software.  In this kind 
of project, you would simply Add Source Components to the project which 
would get assembled to .ROM files because you simply clicked on that option 
in a drop-down list, and in the Virtual Disk fields, you would type your 
disk image name(s).



{Roger Taylor}