[Coco] Newbie questions

Sat Jan 25 14:37:48 EST 2014

BASIC programs in general are confined to 32K (apart from CoCo 3-specific
graphics and text screens).  The PRINT MEM (or ?MEM) command will show you
how much memory is available to BASIC for program and variable/array
storage.  You can see how greatly it is affected by what PCLEAR value is in
effect.

Art

On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 1:52 PM, Sean Margules <s_man501 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I inserted a PCLEAR1 right before the runm command in the menu program and
> that seemed to do the trick. Of course the menu itself (it's the autoexec
> program on drive 0) is a basic program that is running before I would get
> to that game. When we're talking about memory here is it some preassigned
> amount for running Basic programs, or could I just check a higher amount of
> memory for the emulator to have (from 512k to 2048k for instance) ? I think
> I remember reading something in one of the Basic manuals I've been looking
> at about a command where a program can request extra memory from the
> system. Probably getting ahead of myself again aren't I? I'm going to look
> through the coco3 manual Bill pointed me to and see if that doesn't give me
> an idea of what to do next.
>
>
>
> On Saturday, January 25, 2014 6:05 AM, Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu>
> wrote:
>
> PCLEAR 1 moved the location where the Basic program loaded downward in
> memory (at the expense of allotting less memory to graphics) and freeing
> more memory above the loading address for the Basic program itself and
> variable and array storage.  PCLEAR 4 is the default at power-up.  It is
> possible that the VIRUS-D program was not intended for stand-alone use, but
> is supposed to be run by another Basic program that does a PCLEAR 1 before
> loading VIRUS-D.  Or maybe the whole problem was that before, you were
> using it after running another program that allotted memory differently,
> rather than running it right after startup.  You could insert a PCLEAR 1
> into the program itself if
>  the problem is not that it is too big to load at
> all with PCLEAR 4 in effect.
>
> Art
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 4:11 AM, Sean Margules <s_man501 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Wow. Yeah, that worked. The game loads after PCLEAR1. Thanks Art. So what
> > did I just do?
> >
> >
> >
> > On Saturday, January 25, 2014 1:50 AM, Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> > The ?OM ERROR is "out of memory".  This would typically occur with a
> Basic
> > program.  A possible cause might be that the
>  program was written for
> > cassette and that a disk system doesn't have enough memory to run it on
> > account of the extra memory that disk requires.  Can we assume you're
> > running the program from a fresh power-up?  Do you get the OM error just
> > from loading the program, without attempting to run it?  (LOAD"progname")
> > If so, try PCLEAR 1 before loading, and type RUN if the error doesn't
> > occur.  There's no line number accompanying the error message, right?
> >
> > Art
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 1:13 AM, Sean Margules <s_man501 at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > Art,
> > > The error
>  message is ?OM ERROR
> > >
> > > Bill,
> > > I can't find the DECB manual in the repository : (  A search for "Disk
> > > Extended Color Basic" tells me my princess is in another castle. There
> > are
> > > two Basic09 manuals and one TSC basic, but TSC basic seems pretty
> > primitive
> > > compared to RGBDOS. Also, trying to read that manual is making my brain
> > > bleed (not that it'll stop me). I'll keep scrounging around though.
> Some
> > > stuff is coming back to me a little at a time.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Saturday, January 25, 2014 1:00 AM, Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu
> >
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > Sean, what error message are you getting when you try to run the game?
> > >
> > > Art
> > >
> > >
> > > On Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 11:37 PM, Sean Margules <s_man501 at yahoo.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > I've been trying to work with just RGBDOS, (because I have a hard
> drive
> > > so
> > > > why not use it?) and I'm pleased to report that I've been able to
> back
> > up
> > > > just about any .dsk image I care to AND RUN IT which is quite a step
> > > > forward for me. I used the (very) little bit of Basic I still
>  remember
> > > from
> > > > when I was a kid to make myself a menu I can run the different floppy
> > > > images from so I don't keep getting my names and syntax mixed up (run
> > for
> > > > basic, runm for bin, dos for sierra games, etc.)
> > > >
> > > > Only residual issue I'm having is that there is one game (VIRUS-D)
> > which
> > > > is one of several on the disk (VHD slot now), which gives me an error
> > > > whenever I try to run it (from the menu or just with the "run"
> > command).
> > > I
> > > > was thinking perhaps hyphens are illegal characters in run commands?
> > > >
> > > > Is there a reference out there for the type of
>  BASIC used in RGBDOS? I
> > > > found one for BASIC09, but it sure does look like that is rather
> > > intimately
> > > > connected to the Nitros9 OS, which I've been avoiding for the time
> > being
> > > as
> > > > instructed. Thanks,
> > > >
> > > > Sean
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 11:11 PM, Nick Marentes <
> > > > nickma at optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Sean Margules <s_man501 at ...> writes:
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Ok ok. No more Drivewire or HDBDOS till I get a better  handle on
> > this
> > > > stuff. Promise.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > You'll thank us for setting you on a structured path to CoCo nirvana.
> > >  :)
> > > >
> > > > Seriously, you'll enjoy it more and learn with less frustration.
> > > >
> > > > As I said before, I've seen newbies turned off when they dive in at
> the
> > > > end.
> > > >
> > > > Hard drives can come in when you start exploring OS-9.
> > > >
> > > > Learn the basics before jumping in to the advanced.
> > > >
> > > > Nick
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
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> > > > Coco at maltedmedia.com
> > > > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> > >
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>
> >
> > > >
> > >
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