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cosmic frog
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Joined: 09/02/2012
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Posted: 01:59pm 14 Jul 2020

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Hi Tom, thanks, that works great and it's amazing to see Zork running in BASIC on the colour Maximite. It's a pity it's a little slow but still a brilliant achievement.

Have you seen the version for the Arduino? Zorkduino
I built one a few years ago and it runs at a good usable speed.

Thanks for all your help.

Dave.

thwill

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Joined: 16/09/2019
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Posted: 02:34pm 14 Jul 2020

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cosmic frog said Hi Tom, thanks, that works great and it's amazing to see Zork running in BASIC on the colour Maximite. It's a pity it's a little slow but still a brilliant achievement.

Thanks Dave.

Judging by the YouTube video I just looked at (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4dWXJrqxUk) the Colour Maximite 2 version is about as fast as the Zorkduino version.

Quote Have you seen the version for the Arduino? Zorkduino
I built one a few years ago and it runs at a good usable speed.

I didn't see it until I was near the end of my current effort.

It looks like they've implemented support for z4 and .z5 stories and also put more effort into its appearance with a graphic intro and a proper implementation of the status bar - something I planned to do, but haven't had the time.

Of course they are also running the Z-machine as firmware whereas Z-MIM is interpreted BASIC. If I were to do the same for Z-MIM then I assume that:

(a) the performance would greatly exceed that of Zorkduino (I believe the 'mites are more powerful)
(b) no one would play it because it requires them to re-flash their 'mite

Best wishes,

Tom
Edited 2020-07-15 00:48 by thwill

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Turbo46

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Joined: 24/12/2017
Location: Australia
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Posted: 08:44am 20 Aug 2020

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Hi Tom,

I was going to try Z-MIN on the mono Maximite but I had a peep at the program and found a problem right away:

Quote ' Autogenerated on 11-07-2020 21:20:15

If Mm.Device$<>"Colour Maximite"Then
Option Explicit On
Option Default Integer
EndIf

MM.DEVICE$ will return "Maximite" for the mono Maximite. I expect that commenting out those four lines is all that is needed. Might try it tomorrow if I get the time.

Bill

Keep safe. Live long and prosper.

thwill

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Posted: 09:40am 20 Aug 2020

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Turbo46 said Hi Tom,

I was going to try Z-MIN on the mono Maximite but I had a peep at the program and found a problem right away ... MM.DEVICE$ will return "Maximite" for the mono Maximite. I expect that commenting out those four lines is all that is needed. Might try it tomorrow if I get the time.

Bill

Well caught Bill, that shouldn't really be there in "zmim_cm1.bas", or it should be modified to cover the Mono Maximite as well.

Commenting out those lines is hopefully all that is needed. Let me know how it goes, I suspect it will be excruciatingly slow, just as is it is on the CMM1.

Best wishes,

Tom
Edited 2020-08-20 21:53 by thwill

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Jamesk
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Joined: 04/08/2020
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Posted: 09:43pm 20 Aug 2020

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Tom, thanks for putting this interpreter together. Amazing to see it being done in basic. I think every "retro" platform needs to have a Z-machine interpreter implemented on it. It's a right of passage. But this is even more special because we can take a peek behind the curtain and see how the system works.

thwill

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Posted: 10:01pm 20 Aug 2020

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Jamesk said Tom, thanks for putting this interpreter together. Amazing to see it being done in basic. I think every "retro" platform needs to have a Z-machine interpreter implemented on it. It's a right of passage. But this is even more special because we can take a peek behind the curtain and see how the system works.

Thanks for the kind words James.

It may interest you that if you run the unoptimised version:

RUN "/zmim/src/main.bas"

then once you've started a story:

- Type '*break' to enter the Z-machine interactive debugger
- read-only, it doesn't have functionality to change the state of the Z-machine.
- Type 'h' at the 'DEBUG >> prompt' for get a list of the options available.
- Uncomment lines 131-135 of "main.bas" if you want to break into the debugger immediately the story starts executing.

Best wishes,

Tom

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Turbo46

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Posted: 07:37am 21 Aug 2020

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Hi Tom,

I commented out those 4 lines and tried ZMIM in the original mono Maximite and ran the file ZMIM_CM1 and got:

Quote [777] Open f$ for input as #1
Error: cannot find or create directory

I replaced line 777 with:

Quote print f$ : end

and, when run again, it printed:

Quote \zmim\resources\titl_cm1.txt

Considering the manual says:

Quote File names must be in 8.3 format prefixed with an optional drive prefix A: or B: (the same as DOS or Windows). Long file names and directories are not supported. The default drive is B: and this can be changed with the DRIVE command.

I'm surprised that it works on the CM1?
The FILES command on the mono Maximite reports the resources directory as:

Quote <DIR> RESOUR~1

As does the FILES command on the CM1.

Go figure???

Bill

Keep safe. Live long and prosper.

thwill

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Posted: 08:24am 21 Aug 2020

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Hi Bill,

It's a repetition of the same issue as before, see lines 1224-1228:

If Mm.Device$="Colour Maximite"Then
ss$(1)=ss$(0)+"\resour~1"
Else
ss$(1)=ss$(0)+"\resources"
EndIf

I seem to recall you don't need the A:\ or B:\ on the CM1, if you just use \ then it uses the current default drive as returned by Mm.Drive$, probably the same on the MonoMaximite.

Regards,

Tom
Edited 2020-08-21 18:25 by thwill

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Turbo46

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Posted: 09:28am 21 Aug 2020

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Thanks,
I changed line 1224 to:

Quote If Mm.Device$="Colour Maximite" OR MM.Device$="Maximite" Then

and it worked! Well in started the tutorial OK. About the same speed as the CM1.

Bill

Keep safe. Live long and prosper.

thwill

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Posted: 09:30am 21 Aug 2020

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Thanks for letting me know Bill, I've taken some notes to fix these issues when I next have some time to work on it.

Do you have, are you getting a CMM2 ?

Tom

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Turbo46

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Posted: 09:42am 21 Aug 2020

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Yes I do. All the Maximites and a few of the other mite variaties.

Bill

Keep safe. Live long and prosper.

thwill

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Posted: 09:56am 21 Aug 2020

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Turbo46 said Yes I do. All the Maximites and a few of the other mite varieties.

OK, just being nostalgic, or community spirited

I appreciate it either way.

Tom

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Turbo46

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Posted: 09:13pm 21 Aug 2020

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Please pardon me if I'm being blindingly obvious, but would just be simpler to just "autogenerate" a separate version for the "Maximite" rather than cater for the "Colour Maximite" and the "Maximite" in a single version?

Having said that, if the version is generated specifically for the CM1, why is the testing of MM.Device$ even necessary? I'm guessing it's part of a larger plan to perhaps cater for other devices.

Bill

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thwill

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Posted: 09:49pm 21 Aug 2020

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Hi Bill,

This check is so that for testing purposes I can run the CM1 version on the CM2 ... it obviously needs some work

With the benefit of experience what might make more sense is to check whether we are running on the CM2 instead of checking whether we are running on the CM1.

Here's a question you might be able to answer, does a Micromite have a file-system ... I should probably report an error if Z-MIM finds itself installed on one.

Regards,

Tom
Edited 2020-08-22 07:49 by thwill

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Turbo46

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Posted: 10:20pm 21 Aug 2020

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The basic

Micromite MKII doesn't have a file system but the Micromite plus does. I would expect that the Micromite Extreme and other creations of Peter's do also but I have not used them.

Hmm, I expect that ZMIM would come close to working on one of those with output to the console rather than the LCD.

Bill

Keep safe. Live long and prosper.

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