Re: [colorforth] Assembler or machinecode. Was Re: [colorforth] New Linux 4word

[Dr Nick Maroudas <alice@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>On Apr 10, 2005 8:01 PM, Ray St. Marie 
<ray.stmarie@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
>>On Apr 9, 2005 2:25 PM, Dr Nick Maroudas  wrote:
>>[snip]I am trying to make sense of the present boot 
code, but what do floppy disc and Intel CPU want from 
each other?  (Ray, does this qualify for the most stupid 
 question?)
>>[snip]
>>Regards,
>>
>>Nick
>>
>>Ray here,
>>Ordinarily, Doctor, I would have to say "yes, stupid 
question".
>>BUT most stupid?
>>
>>Being as I don't know the answer to either one of 
your questions,
>>neither one qualifies for most stupid, I suppose.
>>


Nick here:

Ray, it's reassuring to learn that somebody else doesn't 
know the answers
to my stupid questions.


and Chris Walton wrote:

> (snip)
>
>You know, I've written a lot of bootsectors and I'd be 
willing to
>write one thats a bit less selective about the 
hardware, and is a
>drop-in replacement for the colorforth one.  (snip)
> Regards, Chris

Nick here:

Chris, your unfussy bootsector might answer those pleas 
for help that pop up regularly in the CF list.    As I 
understand it, Chuck's boot.asm has no BIOS calls. 
Surely the BIOS exists for the very good reason that
each manufacturer of a specific, quirky piece of 
hardware (the "BrandX" PC) is obliged to provide a 
reliable interface for software in general?   Terry
increased the number of successful boots by adding one 
little trick from a BIOS onto Chuck's code. So why not 
try a modular boot segment that calls more of the PC's
own BIOS?  Wouldn't this increase success with different 
"BrandX" PCs?

One could also add a short overall explanation of what 
the CF core needs for a boot.  Tim has already added 
some helpful comments to his two nasm versions of 
Chuck's masm listing (colorN.asm & cmcolor.lst). 
Terry's 4Word "colorless colorforth" also contains 
helpful documentation.  But there is no overall 
explanation of what the boot needs to set up in terms of
CF's architecture; certainly not the way that people 
used to write whole books explaining FIG & F83.

Regards,

Nick




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