Converting MINI-BASIC in MASM over to C++?

Sounds good! Thanks for the update.

Paul

Just done a load and save function, and VERY basic (pun intended!) testing.

Picture for proof (check the URL for "proof" [it's either that, or I'm spending a lot of time doing photoshopping! ;) ]).

Note that the program is absolutely not valid basic, but just something I typed in before doing save.

Edit: I just loaded pitman.mbi as well - it seems to work so far as I can tell. Just paused it a bit into the listing.

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Mats

Hey, that's pretty cool, matsp. Would you mind sharing what you have so far? I'd be interested to see what approach you've taken with this. Maybe some of us could pitch in on whatever else needs to be done, to make things a little easier? Just a thought.

I'd be happy to share it, but bear in mind that I'm following the original format/functions and it's a bit messy and hacky.

Once I've got something roughly working (at least a small section of the functionality of the language, such as assigning variables, goto's, gosub's and for-loops working), I'm thinking that I should do a bit of a refactoring, and use more C++ style approach, rather than "Assembler written in C", as it is now.

I don't think that will happen for a few weeks yet.

And I'd rather share something that I'm reasonably proud of, than a "quick hack".

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Mats

Well, I figured it would be pretty hackish, given what you have to work with. But I'm game. I don't really have a lot of (practical) assembly experience, but there are other areas I could be of some use. And I don't mind working in straight C, either - it doesn't have to be very fancy, it just has to work, right? Either way, keep us posted on the progress. It looks like an interesting project.

I may put something up tonight - I'm not doing any of this at work, you know... ;-)

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Mats

No rush - I don't expect this to become your second job, either!

Looks nice. I think it would work well in C++. I don't know about speed-wise, if it would be faster, but hopefully those Windows API errors would be less frequent.

Paul

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Paul Panks

Looks nice. I think it would work well in C++. I don't know about speed-wise, if it would be faster, but hopefully those Windows API errors would be less frequent.

Paul

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It will almost certainly be slower (although some of the assembler tricks makes short code rather than fast code, it's still VERY unlikely that the code will run faster in C++).

I haven't had any Windows API errors yet. ;)

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Mats

Yeah, Windows API errors were frequent in the assembled version.

Paul

Just thought I'd share that "run" now works too - it only supports ONE command within the code (PRINT, and only with quoted strings as argument), but it's a move in the right direction.

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Mats

Quote:

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Originally Posted by matsp

Just done a load and save function, and VERY basic (pun intended!) testing.

Picture for proof (check the URL for "proof" [it's either that, or I'm spending a lot of time doing photoshopping! ;) ]).

Note that the program is absolutely not valid basic, but just something I typed in before doing save.

Edit: I just loaded pitman.mbi as well - it seems to work so far as I can tell. Just paused it a bit into the listing.

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Mats

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by matsp

Just thought I'd share that "run" now works too - it only supports ONE command within the code (PRINT, and only with quoted strings as argument), but it's a move in the right direction.

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Mats

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That's definitely a great start. It's looking good!

Paul

Quote:

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Originally Posted by matsp

Just done a load and save function, and VERY basic (pun intended!) testing.

Picture for proof (check the URL for "proof" [it's either that, or I'm spending a lot of time doing photoshopping! ;) ]).

Note that the program is absolutely not valid basic, but just something I typed in before doing save.

Edit: I just loaded pitman.mbi as well - it seems to work so far as I can tell. Just paused it a bit into the listing.

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Mats

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Looking good.

Paul

Quote:

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Originally Posted by leeor_net

It probably comes down to shoddy programming -- that is usually the case with so-called fragile software. Fragile = badly written. Being written in ASM only compounds these problems when somebody is using the language without a complete and thorough understanding of internal machine code.

If you were to convert or 'port' it, I would suggest that you just rewrite it from scratch. ASM - C++ is, if you ask me, a waste of time.

Note, though, that C++ is only based on C... it is not C. (I know that's going to start an argument but I'm quoting Bjorn Stroustrup himself). You would need to choose one or the other. C++ is a lot easier when it comes to dealing with errors and the STL names it almost trivial to write an interpretter.

I would say, however, that if you're not familiar with C/C++ you should probably start with a project a little smaller than that.

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Assembly language is a different animal altogether, true...but I think porting it to C/C++ would benefit the C/C++ community. It is a useful language modeled after Palo Alto Tiny BASIC from 1976.

Paul

Quote:

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Originally Posted by matsp

Just done a load and save function, and VERY basic (pun intended!) testing.

Picture for proof (check the URL for "proof" [it's either that, or I'm spending a lot of time doing photoshopping! ;) ]).

Note that the program is absolutely not valid basic, but just something I typed in before doing save.

Edit: I just loaded pitman.mbi as well - it seems to work so far as I can tell. Just paused it a bit into the listing.

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Mats

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Does the list function list the whole program?

Paul