Panasonic HHC ROM 'capules'

[brouhaha]

Jeff_Birt Wrote:Looking at the HHC documentation about SnapFORTH they mention the SnapFORTH capsule multiple times.

Maybe they called it a capsule even though it was a box. I made that mistake in some of my own notes about it.

Quote:The only sort of memory expansion I can find that plugged into the system bus is a 16K RAM expansion. I also see that an EPROM burner is mentioned.

The SnapFORTH box hardware was AFAIK special for that, and doesn't match any other sold option.

Quote: Looking at the ROM images I got from the Silicium forum it seems that both SnapBASIC and SnapFORTH were 16K capsules.

The SnapBASIC I have is only 8K. (EDIT) I double checked, and I was mistaken. SnapBASIC is 16K.

Quote:
Perhaps they used the EPROM box until they could get the custom 16K, 24-pin ROMs made?

AFAIK, there were never any 16K capsules fitting in the 24-pin capsule slots, even though it was sort of theoretically possible.

Quote:EDIT: Reading some other Panasonic HHC related messages from the linked archive there was a reference to a 3rd party EPROM box (bottom mounted) and a reference to a side mounted SnapFORTH compiler add on.

The side-mounted device what I've been talking about. That's the only native SnapFORTH development environment, though a cross development for the Apple II also existed.

Quote:Thanks for the tip on the SnapBASIC image being corrupted this line in that message:

No, it's Microsoft BASIC that has corrupted dumps. SnapBASIC is fine, orat least there's no obvious evidence of a problem.

AFAICT, the Microsot BASIC capsule outsold the SnapBASIC capsule by about a zillion to one. SnapBASIC was better integrated to the system, and could share resources better, vs. Microsoft BASIC just sucking up all the RAM and not cooperating with anything. However, Microsoft BASIC was much faster, and was what people were more familiar with, being largely identical to Microsoft BASIC on other platforms.