Triton Super Extended BASIC

TRITON SUPER EXTENDED BASIC amalgamated a number of TI XB mods prepared for Gram device owners. It was supplied on a standard module and required expansion memory to use the graphics routines.

Authors: D.C.Warren. Danny Michael, Mike Dodd, and the graphics routines by H. Shillingburg

Summary

CALL VERSION(A)

command returned a value of 120.

New commands

included CALL CHIMES, CALL ALOCK, CALL ALL, a very useful CALL CAT, CALL CLOCK (runs slow in the UK), GOSUB and GOTO with variables.

Enhanced editing features

which allow you to move, copy, delete or resequence PORTIONS of an XB program quite rapidly. RESEQUENCE has been deleted but you can still use RES.

Graphics

Also it has included on ROM a commercial machine code bit map graphics program called DRAW N PLOT. This allows you to plot bit map graphics, but only off screen- only when completed can you SHOW them, although there is a cursor on screen when you SHOW which allows direct editing. Graphics can be saved and printed and the format is compatible with TI ARTIST.

There is a major conflict in use of VDP between the bit map graphics feature and an XB program, and hang ups may be frequent, especially if you PRINT the picture.

Triton XB requires 32k ram for the graphics feature. There is a graphics program available (CLASS) for Triton XB.

CALL CAT

from the command line will catalogue a disk drive directly.

Auto Load

You can also skip the XB auto-load by holding down enter.

LIST

now enables printer output to be any width you wish, 28 to match screen.

TRACE

can now be sent to a printer.

List of the NEW CALLS:

CALL ALL

quickly fills the screen with a designated character.

CALL ALOCK, CALL SHIFT, CALL FCTN and CALL CTRL

all return a 0 or l depending on whether the relevant key is pressed- CAUTION there is a "bug" whereby pressing the FCTN key causes the other CALLS to SOMETIMES give false return values!

CALL CHIMES, CALL BEEP and CALL HONK

may impress you

CALL CLOCK and CALL CLKOFF

give you the usual interupt driven clock, in the top right hand corner, which assumes 60 interrupts per second and so runs slow outside the USA. The clock can be set/reset with a CALL LINK.

CALL CLSALL

will close ALL open files (handy)

CALL COLORS

will quickly change the colours of ALL character sets

CALL GOSPRT and CALL STSPRT

will stop and start sprite motion, allowing you to set up a multiple-sprite image which does not tear apart as it starts moving.

CALL GOTO and CALL GOSUB

allow you to use numeric variables for the line numbers.

CALL RESTORE

also allows numeric variables to be used for the line number

CALL KEYS

is a really nice one. Let's look at an example:

OLD TI XB:            
100 CALL KEY(0,A,B) 
110 IF B<'>1 THEN 100 
120 B=POS("ESDX",CHR$(A),1) 
130 IF B<1 THEN 100

TRITON SXB:
100 CALL KEYS("ESDX",B)  

CALL NEW and CALL BYE

are fairly obvious! CALL RUNPROG allows the use of a string variable.

CALL CAT

to obtain a disk directory FROM COMMAND MODE ONLY is very useful

CALL PEEKV and POKEV

read and write VDP ram, while CALL PEEKG reads GROM. There is also a POKEG should you have a module with GRAM (know of any???)

CALL QUITON and CALL QUITOFF

fairly understandable

CALL SCROFF and CALL SCRON

turn the screen display on and off

The bit map graphics in detail

In addition, IF you have 32k ram, you can access a bit-map graphic utility, which is Quality Software's DRAW N PLOT, actually built into the Module.

Set Up

Set up is a little awkuard as you must use CALL FILES(2) rather than the default (3), but otherwise quite easy.

CALL DRAWNPLOT sets it up, and CALL LINK("GCLEAR") sets up memory for you.

Drawing an image

You can then construct a picture in a pad area, using CALL LINK's to MOVE, DRAW, CIRCLE, SQUARE, LABEL. and then move the picture from pad to screen with SHOW

OR you can use your joystick to draw a picture by linking to EDIT, which gives a number of single-key press commands for clearing the screen, inputting text, drawing lines, squares and circles, filling shapes with black, toggle write/erase. From both SHOW and EDIT exit is by pressing key E

Edit / Save

Pictures can be dumped to printer in two sizes. Manual error here. Don't use PIO as suggested, but the more normal graphics "PIO.CR".

Pictures can also be saved and loaded to disk (in TI Artist format)

Simple Example of Use

Using the graphics:

a. Set up in command mode 
CALL FILES(2) 
NEW 
CALL INIT 
CALL DRAWNPLOT 
CALL LINK("GCLEAR") 

b. Now run this program which will load a TI Artist image from disk and allow you to print it in two sizes:

100 DISPLAY AT(4,2)ERASE ALL:"TI ARTIST FILE NAME?" 
110 DISPLAY AT(6,6):"DSK1.        _P" 
120 ACCEPT AT(6,9)SIZE(-10) :A$ 
130 A$="DSK"&A$&"_P" 
140 CALL LINK("GLOAD",A$) 
150 REM PRESS E TO EXIT 
160 CALL LINK("SHOW")
170 CALL COLORS(2,15) 
180 PRINT "PRESS S TO PRINT SMALL PIC" 
190 PRINT "PRESS L TO PRINT LARGE PIC" 
200 PRINT 'PRESS C TO CONTINUE" 
210 CALL KEYS("SLC",A) 
220 ON A GOTO 300,400,500 
300 CALL LINK("GDUMP","PIO.CR"):: GOTO 500 
400 CALL LINK("LDUMP","PIO.CR") 
500 CALL LINK ( "GCLEAR") 
510 GOTO 100 
520 END 

Technical

NOTE: The DRAWNPLOT machine code is transferred from the module to low mem - the 8k area of the 32k ram- so there is little room for other machine code routines to co-reside. The actual plotting takes place in hi-mem (the 24k area used by your XB program) so there is only some 17k available for your XB program.

In practice, I have found that when using a SMALL XB program to do some heavy plotting, there has been interference with VDP RAM, which is not supposed to be used until you transfer the image with SHOW. At the lowest level this interference took the form of odd recolouring or character redefinitions, but at the extreme, frame hold was lost and the console locked up.

I encountered no problem using EDIT or GLOAD, only in producing hi res graphics from a running XB program using the LINKS provided, and then only after heavy repetitive use.

Provided you are not using GSAVE, it appears to be an adequate solution to insert a CALL DRAWNPLOT (not documented but you CAN use it in a running program), in between each plot in order to clear this problem, but if you use GSAVE, I have not yet found a solution, and would welcome suggestions! As it stands, if you use an XB program to plot a picture then GSAVE it, you really need to restart the program for a further plot, otherwise the XB screen will corrupt and you may lock-out.