The INFORMANT Version 1.00 BBC Micro/Master Series Help ROM (c) 1990 by Alan Blundell Page 1 The INFORMANT ROM contains textual help information on a range of topics selected to assist the 'serious' programmer to access the facilities offered by the BBC Micro series and to reduce the dependance on manuals for reference for information on how to access those facilities. Most of the facilities are accessed by the standard *HELP ... syntax. Abbreviations are permitted according to Acorn conventions, using a period (.) to indicate abbreviation. The range of help topics is indicated by the INFORMANT main help message, as generated by the command *HELP HELP (minimum abbreviation: *H. H. ) This command generates the following message (assuming that the INFORMANT is present in ROM or in SRAM): Help is available on the following topics:- MEMUSE / VECTORS / FLAGS VDU / PLOT / TELETEXT ASCII / INKEY EVENTS / ADVAL PITCH / DURATION OScalls OSARGS / OSASCI / OSBGET / OSBPUT OSCLI / OSEVEN / OSFILE / OSFIND OSGBPB / OSNEWL / OSRDCH / OSRDRM OSWORD / OSWRCH / GSINIT / GSREAD Star commands:- *ASCII - Returns the ASCII code(s) of *VDU .. - Opposite of *ASCII *DTOH .. - Number converter. *HTOD .. - " " Each of the topics listed produces its own textual response, ranging from a short message to a lengthy, detailed response which goes on for several screenfuls (such as *HELP MEMUSE, which provides a detailed breakdown of Page 2 the use of RAM in the BBC Micro and Master series machines). As sample output, the texts produced by *HELP OScalls (minimum abreviation: *H. O.) and by *HELP OSFILE (*H. OSF. ) are reproduced below: *HELP OScalls OS Calls summary. _________________ Name Addr Function OSCLI FFF7 Command line interpreter OSBYTE FFF4 *FX calls OSWORD FFF1 See OSWORD OSWRCH FFEE Send char to vdu drivers OSNEWL FFE7 Send CR/LF to vdu drivers OSASCI FFE3 As OSWRCH/OSNEWL if necc. OSRDCH FFE0 Read char from input OSFILE FFDD Load/save files OSARGS FFDA Filing system bits OSBGET FFD7 Get 1 byte from file OSBPUT FFD4 Put 1 byte to file OSGBPB FFD1 Multiple OSBPUT/OSBGET OSFIND FFCE Open/close files NVRDCH FFCB Non-vectored RDCH. NVWRCH FFC8 Non-vectored WRCH. GSREAD FFC5 Read char from input string GSINIT FFC2 Initialise for GSREAD OSEVEN FFBF Generate an event OSRDRM FFB9 Read a byte in paged mem. >*HELP OSFILE OSFILE call addr &FFDD indirected &212 XY point to parameter block, A holds the reason for the call:- A=0 Save a block of memory A=1 Write file name + addresses for Page 3 an existing file A=2 Write load addr for existing file A=3 Write exec addr for existing file A=4 Write attributes for existing fle A=5 Read a file's catalogue info into the parameter block A=6 Delete the named file A=&FF Load the named file (XY+6)=0 to addr in control block (XY+6)<>0 to file's own load addr Format of the parameter block:- 00-01 Addr of filename (ends with &0D) 02-05 Load address 06-09 Execution address 0A-0D Start address for save Length of file when loading 0E-11 End address for save File attributes when loading X and Y are preserved on return. In total, the ROM contains approximately 22Kbytes of help text, in addition to the rom header code, code to handle the help requests and four new '*' commands. This is achieved by compaction of the help text messages. The algorithm used to compress the texts is encapsulated in the body of the BASIC program used to perform the compression. Although fairly basic, the compression method used resulted in a useful saving of over 30% overall, saving over 7Kbytes of ROM space (which wasn't in fact available - the alternative would have been to put less into the ROM). The compression program is stored on the distribution disc as file COMPRES, and is listed as follows. It is based on work published in Personal Computer World magazine in May 1985, but improved and customised by me for the purpose of producing compacted texts for this work. 10REM Text compression 20 30GOTO 270 40 Page 4 50 Coding rules:- 60 1st 4 bits are 70 (0-9) space + 9 common chars 80 (aeiorstln). 90 (A-F) use 6 subtables with 100 the next 4 bits 110 (16 chars each: 6*16=96 120 130 Subtables are as follows:- 140 150 HEX A B C D E F 160 From 32 48 64 80 96 112 170 To 47 63 79 95 111 127 180 190 NB: 32 is used for newline, 200 127 is used for end of text. 210 220 Subtable is given by 230 (char-32)DIV16 240 250__________________________________ 260 270IC%=0 :REM input counter 280OC%=0 :REM output counter 290OB%=0 :REM output byte buffer 300OBE=1 :REM Flag=1 if ^ empty 310DIM AV%(126-97) 320FORI%=97TO122 330READ C$ 340IF C$<>"" AV%(I%-97)=VALC$ 350NEXT 360 370REM define the set of 4 bit codes 380REM a bcde fghi jkl mn o pqr s t uvwxyz 390DATA1,,,,2,,,,3,,,8,,9,4,,,5,6,7,,,,,,,0 400INPUT"Name of source file :"T$ 410F1=OPENINT$ 420INPUT"Name of destination file:"T$ 430F2=OPENOUTT$ 440 450REM Main loop 460REPEAT 470C%=BGET#F1 480IFEOF#F1 GOTO570 490IC%=IC%+1 500IFC%<33 GOTO 550 510IFC%<97 PROCout8:GOTO570 520A%=AV%(C%-97) Page 5 530IFA%=0 PROCout8 ELSEPROCout4 540GOTO570 550IF C%=32 A%=0:PROCout4:GOTO570 560IFC%=13 C%=32:PROCout8 ELSEPRINT"Ignore input character ";C% 570UNTILEOF#F1 580C%=127 590PROCout8 600CLOSE #0 610PRINT"Input counter =";IC% 620PRINT"Output counter =";OC% 630PRINT"Compression is ";OC%*1000 DIV IC%/10;"%" 640END 650 660DEFPROCout4 670IF OBE OB%=A%*16:OBE=0:ENDPROC 680REM Full byte ready to output 690OB%=OB%+A% 700BPUT#F2,OB% 710OBE=1 720OC%=OC%+1 730ENDPROC 740 750DEFPROCout8 760OC%=OC%+1 770REM Set C%left & C%right 780CL%=C%DIV16+8 790CR%=C%AND15 800IFOBE BPUT#F2,CL%*16+CR%:ENDPROC 810REM output buffer is \ full..... 820OB%=OB%+CL% 830BPUT#F2,OB% 840OB%=CR%*16 850IFC%=127 THEN BPUT#F2,OB% 860REM ^ is to flush buffer. 870ENDPROC In addition to the help texts, the INFORMANT contains four new '*' commands designed to help the programmer, which seemed to me to fit into the overall design of this ROM. The 4 are: *ASCII - Returns the ASCII code(s) of *VDU .. - Opposite of *ASCII *DTOH .. - Number converter. *HTOD .. - " " Page 6 They are fairly self - explanatory; *VDU sends any ASCII codes given (in decimal) directly to the VDU drivers, and may be useful for changing MODE in programs where this might not otherwise be possible (?). *DTOH will convert any number from decimal to hex, *HTOD will do the reverse. Both will work with numbers in the range 0 - 65535 (&0 - &FFFF); larger input numbers will produce indeterminate results. ------------------ Page 7