ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE JULY 1995 ISSUE OF MICROPENDIUM P.O. BOX 1343 ROUND ROCK TX 78680 Microreviews for July 1995 Micropendium by Charles Good ---------------- TI WORKSHOP by DataBioTics When this module was released in 1987 by DataBioTics few purchased it, and it disappeared into obscurity. It was listed in the Spring/Summer and the Fall 1988 Triton catalogs under the name Magic Memory. Now TexComp Ltd. (the new TexComp) is again offering this unique product. The module is unique because it is the largest module software ever produced for the 99/4A. Inside is 64K of rom, bank switched 8K at a time into the console's cartridge rom (or ram) area at >6000 - >7FFF. TI workshop is a combination disk manager, sector editor, and assembly language program development environment. Program development software includes a text editor designed specifically for writing assembly source code, an assembler, a disassembler, a debugger, and a memory viewer/editor. All of this is in the cartridge, accessable from a very well designed menu system. It is very easy to bounce back and forth between one workshop application and another such as between the memory editor and the debugger. No disk based software (such as the TI e/a editor or assembler or superbug debugger) is used. You do, however, need a disk system to load and save source files and assembled code and you need a 32K memory expansion. A printer is nice too. From anywhere in the workship you can do a screen dump. You can of course print entire source files and there is a large variety of printing options relating to the assembly and disassembly of assember code. The disk manager is really first rate, resembling DM1000 in its capabilities but better than DM1000 because it links directly with a sector editor. Even normal 99/4A users who are not assembly programmers will find this cartridge disk manager convenient and very useful. I use it when my Horizon ramdisks crash to help me reload the ramdisk ROS and, if necessary load my files back on to the ramdisks. I have disk managers on my ramdisks, but they are useless if the ramdisk locks up. TI Planner's Disk Manager is compatible with drives 1-9 and randisks that are at any CRU address. You can page back and forth on screen within a directory listing without first having to move the cursor to the top or bottom of the displayed page. You can mark all files for copying, protecting, unprotecting, or deleting with a single keystroke, or you can do this individually from a disk directory. The directory lets you separately mark each file on the disk with up to three commands and then execute all the commands. File commands include Copy, Delete, Edit (loads DV or DF80 file into editor), Find (switches to sector editor and lets you view/edit sectors containing the file), Load (an EA5 or EA3 file which will then run), Move (copies, then deletes file from source), Output (text file to printer), Protect, Rename, Temp (temporarily unprotects a file so an action such as Rename can occur then protects file again), and Unprotect. Disk Utilities of the disk manager include Copy (sector copying with or without bitmap), Erase (sweep), Initialize, and Format A Bunch (box format). Memory manager lets you Show Dump Edit Initialize (fill designated memory with the same data byte) Copy (from one area of memory to another) and Search. You can do these things with VDP and CPU memory, but you can't check on Grom memory. You can also set a CRU bit at any CRU address to activate the peripheral at that address. This allows you to manipulate the memory of the device's DSR. For example, I have a CorComp disk controller. If I select "CRU Bit Control" from memory manager (or from several other places within TI Workshop) I can activate the disk controller's DSR. First I type 1100, the address of the DSR. Then I change the first address at this location to >0001 to turn on the DSR. I can then page through the CorComp disk controller's DSR and get a display and/or printout in both hex and ascii. I notice that part of this DSR code says in ascii "c Miller Graphics", which verifies that Craig Miller wrote the CorComp disk controller DSR code. You can also manipulate extended VDP memory if you have an 80 column card. Such cards have much more than 16K of VDP memory with the extra memory going beyond the normal >3FFF where console VDP memory ends. TI Workshop lets you manipulate this extra memory if you have it. The Debugger is a menu based modification of Edgar Dohman's Superbug II. In fact Mr. Dohman is credited as the author of most parts of TI Workshop. You can view and set all the registers, set and list breakpoints, single step or slow execute (3 instructions per second), and execute at regular speed based on where you set the program counter register. Disassembly has all sorts of screen display and/or printer options. You can activate a DSR, copy the DSR code to a safe memory location, and then disassemble the DSR code as if this code was still resident at the DSR location (>4000 - >5FFF). The instruction book has a Debugger and Disassembler tutorial. You are given some sample code to enter and told what to expect as the Debugger and Disassembler do their thing. The source code editor resembles the TI EA module editor with some enhancements. Tab settings are more convenient, there are more convenient text manipulation features, amd there is a true lower case character set. An automatic mode is available that gives auto tabs and capitalization in columns 1-25, very handy for distinguishing comments from actual assembly source code. The assembler has some print options besides the usual R, C. and L choices of the TI assembler. The most interesting of these is Cross Reference. This gives you a printed list of program labels, line numbers where the labels occur, and line numbers where the label is referenced. The cartridge comes with a very detailed 60+ page user guide. One of the appendixes in this manual is unusual. It tells you how to permanently backup and customize TI Planner. Just trot out your TI eprommer (everybody has one, right?), open up the cartridge, remove the eprom from its socket and copy it to disk. Now you can make a few changes here and there as suggested in the appendix and then save your customized TI Planner back to a new eprom. This is an expensive cartridge, $49.95, but it is an expensive cartridge for TexComp Ltd. to manufacture. The 64K eprom isn't cheap. Also copying costs for the large user guide are not insignificant. TI Planner is a product that all assembly programmers should consider. It offers the assembly programmer seamless access to a combination of features found nowhere else in a single software package, sort of like Miller Graphics Advanced Diagnostics, Explorer, and Diskassembler all combined into one easily accessable menu system. Only PC99 running on an IBM compatible can offer a similar set of features all in one package. TI Workshop is by far the best cartridge based disk manager/sector editor available for the 99/4A and because of that may be worth the expense for mere mortal 99/4A users as well as programmers. -------------------- HALLS OF LOST MORRIA by Michael Veprauskas This is a Tunnels of Doom game requiring the TOD module. Mr. Veprauskas wrote it for his children. I know, you are probably thinking, "Ho hum, yet another TOD game." That is what I thought too when I was first asked to review Halls. But this game really is different and enjoyable. My 14 year old son Colin took Halls for a test drive and really liked it. He has experimented with other TOD games in our user group library and claims Halls is the best of the lot. One thing different about Halls is that it is winable! There is an end point, and with a little persistance you will get there. Colin did it in one long afternoon of play. It took me a little longer. I am an adventure game klutz and here publically confess that I have not, without aid from cheat books, solved any of the Scott Adams or Infocom advantures. It is really good for my ego to know that I can actually solve Halls. In addition to the game file, there is a little TI BASIC program that lets you know your score based on how many treasures you collect, how many floors you go down, etc. TI BASIC lets you run this program without removing the TOD module. The second thing different about Halls is its documentation. It is massive and very professionally produced. This is not your usual on disk short doc file or pile of poorly copied typewritten sheets. You get an 18 page book with lots of nice black and white graphics giving you the whole story of Moria, a descritpion of the 10 underground levels, a summary of stats and abilities of the various types of people in your party, and an extensive glossary of names and nouns you are likely to encounter in the game. You also get some "Stat Sheets" to help you keep track of things. You write on the stat sheets for each adventurer a name, class, hit points, wounds, level, weapons with their damage and available amo, armor and shield protection, and magical items. This is a lot of stuff to remember. Of course you can have the game display this info, but this is a bit cumbersome. It is really handy to have all these data neatly organized on a single sheet of paper. If you want to start your adventure right away there is a predefined game with predefined adventurers at a predetermined location described in the user guide. A "Quick Stat Sheet" is included with the game that lists these predefined adventurers along with their names, hit points, and class. You just select "Continue Current Game" from the TOD module menu after you load the game. I really like this because I am too lazy to construct new dungeons or restock old ones when starting a new type of TOD game. The predefined game is the one I finished. You can, of course, make new dungeons and replay Halls once you solve the predefined game. Halls of Moria comes on a SSSD disk. It is commercial and available only from the author for $5. Included, of course, is all the fancy documentation. _____________________ Access: Tex Comp Ltd (for TI Workshop). 425 E. Arrow Hwy #732, Glendora CA 91740. Voice phone (usually answered by a real live human) 818-339-8924. Fax 818-858-2785. Michael Veprauskas (for Halls of Lost Moria). 32 Vaillancourt Dr., New Ipswich NH 03071. Charles Good (send products for review in this column). P.O. Box 647, Venedocia OH 45894. Voice phone 419-667-3131. Internet email cgood@osulima1.lima.ohio-state.edu or good.6@osu.edu