HP Forum Archive 16

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SIG Forth for Series 80 - Assembler source found Message #1 Posted by John on 6 May 2006, 2:20 p.m. Hi, Thanks to the efforts of Everett Kaiser the original SIG Forth program for the Series 80 (HP-85, HP-87) has been found. This is in Series 80 Assembler language, and contains conditional assembler statements to produce 4 diferent versions, either a binary program or ROM for either the HP-85 or HP-87. (Of course the ROM version would be suitable for either the Programable ROM Module or the PRM-85 module.) Now the problem is however that I have tried to assemble the source and can't get it to work, so I need some brains to try and solve it and bring this code back to life! Here's the situation. Everett e-mailed my a disk image in HPWUTIL format. I hadn't come across this before (I use LIFUTIL by default), but found HPWUTIL to work very well. You can download it from Everett's site: http://www.kaser.com/HPWUTIL.EXE I have copied the disk image (FORTH.ZIP) to my site, plus the source in ASCII format (gefrt1.txt and gefrt2.txt), into a new zip here: http://www.vintagecomputers.btinternet.co.uk/hp85/assembler/HP_Series_80_Forth.zip To use HPWUTIL you first need a floppy formated by a Series 80 machine. Then extract forth.zip to a directory on a DOS (or Windows 98 in MS-DOS mode) machine, run HPWUTIL and find the write menu item to extract the HPW files to a LIF disk. This writes GEFRT1 and GEFRT2 to the LIF disk, which are the two souce files. I then loaded the floppy into my HP-87A (which has two 128K RAM Modules and the Assembler ROM). I went into Assembler mode and ALOADed the first source file in. In the first few lines are the conditional assembly instructions, I set it to HP-87 Binary program mode and typed: ASSEMBLE "FORTH",1 to start the assembly. It went through, and loaded GEFRT2. All seemed to be going well, but just towards the end it stopped with a MEM OVR 19 error, ie a memory overflow. I have no idea why. I then loaded back the GEFRT1 and changed it to produce a HP-87 ROM. This assembled OK, and left a data file on the disk. I modified an earlier program (used for 9915 EPROMs) to load in the data file, and found it was 33 records long, each record was a string of 125 characters except the last string (around 12 characters). This is just over 4000 bytes, so seems a bit short. I copied this to an EPROM, the file for this is in the above zip file (suitable file convertors are format83 and hex-bin at http://www.bookcase.com/library/software/msdos.util.convert.decode.html). I burnt this to EPROM, loaded it into a Programmable ROM Module, plugged that into my HP-87. I turned the machine on, got the cursor, typed FORTH then the machine crashed - the screen folded and then it reset, so not good. I tried pasting the source into Olivier's HP-87 emulator: http://www2.akso.de/files/series_80/Emulator/ but it would load paste in, so I think I need a binary disk image of the source code floppy before trying this again. Also the emulator does not allow new artibary ROMs to be loaded, so I'll drop him an e-mail. So the key request is, please can anyone with an HP-87 and experience of the Assembler please advise or try and run this code for yourself. Hopefully this problem can be solved and Forth can once again be run on the Series 80, its been 'lost' for many years so it would be great to bring it back to life. Thanks & regards, John

Re: SIG Forth for Series 80 - Assembler source found Message #2 Posted by J-F Garnier on 7 May 2006, 5:50 a.m., in response to message #1 by John Hi John, I can't help so much (at least at the moment), but I can mention other Forth implementations that did exist: Commercial versions: HP-85 by Lange, HP-75 by Cassady, mentionned in this ad (from Forth Dimensions V5N2 page 19). However, they seem now to be lost, unfortunatly. HP User's Lib HP-80 serie Forth, mentionned in this archive . Maybe is it the same than the file you posted? There is also a HP-75 version in the Swap archives of the Museum, in LEX and ROM format. I tried once to run it and it seems to work, but no source is available. It is very difficult to recover and collect old software, much more than hardware collection! J-F Edited: 7 May 2006, 5:58 a.m.

Re: SIG Forth for Series 80 - Assembler source found Message #3 Posted by John on 7 May 2006, 6:57 a.m., in response to message #2 by J-F Garnier Thanks for the info J-F Quote: HP User's Lib HP-80 serie Forth, mentionned in this archive . Maybe is it the same than the file you posted? Yes, this is indeed the same version. It was this article that I came across 3 years ago that encouraged me to keep looking, and it was Don who kindly released the Forth source code disk to Everett! Perhaps some of the limitations in the article are true of this version, I will do some more tests. BTW Everett has some further previously unpublished information on the Series 80, but I will leave it to Everett to make any announcments. Hopefully over time more of the Series 80 library will be available on-line, yes software does seem to be more difficult to save than some of the hardware. Regards, John

Re: SIG Forth for Series 80 - Assembler source found Message #4 Posted by Jim Rudnick on 7 May 2006, 3:49 p.m., in response to message #2 by J-F Garnier RE: 75C Forth by Cassaday...I believe I have this on microtape and the manual(Forth Age Productions). email me Jim

Re: SIG Forth for Series 80 - Assembler source found Message #5 Posted by John on 8 May 2006, 8:07 p.m., in response to message #1 by John Hi, I found one error in my method I used to generate a ROM file. Before I wrote: > I modified an earlier program (used for 9915 EPROMs) to load in the > data file, and found it was 33 records long, each record was a > string of 125 characters except the last string (around 12 > characters). This is just over 4000 bytes, so seems a bit short. It appears I didn't have the guess the correct structure of the HP-87 Assembler output file. I assumed that it was a data file with one string per record, ie use: READ# 1 ; R$ to read in the data, whilst it now appears there are two strings per record, so I modified the program to be: READ#1 ; R$ , S$ I'm just checking this now, length now nearer to 8000 bytes which is better! More later, Regards, John

Re: SIG Forth for Series 80 - HP-87 ROM works! Message #6 Posted by John on 9 May 2006, 4:57 a.m., in response to message #1 by John Hi, I corrected my conversion program for reading the HP-87 Assembler output file to transfer to EPROM and I am pleased to report the EPROM loaded OK on my HP-87. Typed FORTH and was presented with: HP87 FORTH V2.4 Pressed END LINE and got the OK prompt. I have updated the download file at: http://www.vintagecomputers.btinternet.co.uk/hp85/assembler/HP_Series_80_Forth.zip I am now trying out Forth using the tutorial at: http://www.amresearch.com/starting_forth Looking good, thanks again to Everett Kaiser for providing the source code. Regards, John PS - Note re conversion program, this was based on the Basic code given on the instruction sheet for the Programmable ROM Module, which is on www.series80.org. This gives the code for the checksum needed at the end of the ROM.

Re: SIG Forth for Series 80 - HP-87 ROM works! Message #7 Posted by Everett Kaser on 9 May 2006, 10:43 a.m., in response to message #6 by John John S. wrote... >>> Note re conversion program, this was based on the Basic code given on the instruction sheet for the Programmable ROM Module, which is on www.series80.org. This gives the code for the checksum needed at the end of the ROM. <<< One of the other things I got from Don was two diskettes that contain the HP-85B (I'm pretty sure) Mass Storage ROM and Electronic Disc ROM source files. These are in HP-87 Assembler ROM format (ie, they can't be loaded on an HP-85, only the HP-86/87). Besides the source files themselves (which are QUITE nice to have... :-), they include a BASIC program called BURNER, which reads the Assembler's ROM output data file and sends it to an EPROM programmer over the serial interface. I don't know if it differs in any significant way from what was on the PROM Module instruction sheet or not, but thought you might like to have it, in case it's of use. I copied the two diskettes (this time using LIFUTIL! :-), and have placed the files on my website at: http://www.kaser.com/hp85/msed85_1.zip http://www.kaser.com/hp85/msed85_2.zip UnZIP each into it's own folder to get the files for each diskette. The first one contains the Mass Storage ROM files (the source files are MASSPART.1 thru MASSPART.4), and the second one contains the EDisc ROM files (the source files are ROM2PART.1 and ROM2PART.2). Each one contains the BURNER BASIC program. I got a bunch of other stuff from Don also (including what may well be the last printed copy in the world of the HP-85 system ROM source code listings!), and will make it available as I get time. Too much to do, too little time. Or, as Bill use to say: "Life is short, and ROM is full." Everett Kaser

Re: SIG Forth for Series 80 - HP-87 ROM works! Message #8 Posted by Etienne Victoria on 9 May 2006, 10:48 a.m., in response to message #7 by Everett Kaser Hello Everett! ...and to this wise sentence, I guess you answered FIRJEN ;-)) Many thanks to you and John for the nice work! I'll go and dig in immediately! Etienne Edited: 9 May 2006, 10:49 a.m.

Re: SIG Forth for Series 80 - HP-87 ROM works! Message #9 Posted by Everett Kaser on 10 May 2006, 10:57 a.m., in response to message #8 by Etienne Victoria Etienne wrote... >...and to this wise sentence, I guess you answered FIRJEN ;-)) <sheepish grin> Yes, well, one of my "funnier in retrospect" adventures at HP. :-) Everett

Re: SIG Forth for Series 80 - Assembler source found Message #10 Posted by Olivier De Smet on 10 May 2006, 2:07 a.m., in response to message #1 by John Hi, I just updated my emulator to allow the use of the FORTH rom with an HP87 and HP85. Only the HP87 rom is given with windows binaries. Url : http://olivier.2.smet.googlepages.com/hpseries80 Hope it helps Olivier

Re: SIG Forth for Series 80 - Assembler source found Message #11 Posted by John on 11 May 2006, 2:15 p.m., in response to message #10 by Olivier De Smet Yes thanks, HP-87 emulator works fine with Forth ROM! Regards, John

Re: SIG Forth for Series 80 - HP-85 ROM also works Message #12 Posted by John on 16 May 2006, 4:16 a.m., in response to message #1 by John Hi, With thanks to Olivier for assembling the HP-85 ROM version, and to Everett for the BURNER program, I have made a ROM copy of the Forth for the HP-85, and this also works fine. I have updated the file below: http://www.vintagecomputers.btinternet.co.uk/hp85/assembler/HP_Series_80_Forth.zip so it now contains the image for the HP-85 ROM and HP-87 ROM. This has been an interesting project, thanks again to all who have helped. Regards, John

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