Re: ant spray

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From	Alan Meyer <ameyer2@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups	comp.os.linux.misc
Subject	Re: ant spray
Date	Mon, 06 Jun 2011 16:43:29 -0400
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On 6/3/2011 2:27 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

>...
> I remember the chicken-and-egg problem when I built a development
> system for my cassette-based IMSAI, starting from a simple monitor
> in ROM.  Should I first write an editor to edit source code for
> an assembler, or should I first write an assembler to assemble
> an editor?  I think I wound up toggling in code for a rudimentary
> assembler through the front panel switches - patching in place
> heavily as I debugged it - and then toggled in code into another
> area of memory that would let me type the equivalent source code
> for the assembler and write it to tape so I could assemble it with
> the assembler that was still sitting in memory.  Then I used that
> little cat command surrogate to type in source code for an editor.
> It was fun to get them both working.
>

I faced a similar problem in 1977 (IIRC) on my TRS-80 Model II.  I 
bought an assembler on cassette tape, wrote my first program using the 
built in ROM BASIC editor and wrote it to tape.  Then I read in the 
assembler, it read in the program and assembled it, and then wrote the 
assembled binary to tape.  I then read the binary back in, overwriting 
the assembler, and ran it.

Nothing happened that I could discern.  Obviously there was a bug.  Now 
what?  I needed a debugger.

I wrote the debugger in a combination of BASIC (about 90%) and machine 
language stored in BASIC string variables, then used that to debug my 
program.  Relocation was not an option so I had to assemble my program 
to load in the space after the BASIC debugger.

It was a great learning experience but not something I'm keen to repeat.

     Alan

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ant spray "john@wexfordpress.com" <john@wexfordpress.com> - 2011-06-02 06:00 -0700
  Re: ant spray Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2011-06-02 09:23 -0500
    Re: ant spray "john@wexfordpress.com" <john@wexfordpress.com> - 2011-06-02 07:43 -0700
    Re: ant spray John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com> - 2011-06-02 09:40 -0500
    Re: ant spray Jean-David Beyer <jeandavid8@verizon.net> - 2011-06-02 11:04 -0400
      Re: ant spray "Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2011-06-03 10:27 -0800
        Re: ant spray Alan Meyer <ameyer2@yahoo.com> - 2011-06-06 16:43 -0400
          Re: ant spray Alan Meyer <ameyer2@yahoo.com> - 2011-06-06 16:47 -0400

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