Emulator Source Load and Save

[rprosperi]

Replying to no one in particular, or to everyone:

I fully agree with Barry's comments about the value to the community of enhancing the emulator's capabilities to easily upload/download, and therefore more easily share 34S applications.

Just as Jake & Jackie's Barcode listings of all published 41C programs and Torsten's Simulator allow simple upload/download of 15C programs to a DM-15, this would make it trivial for users to share programs, without requiring tedious re-keying, which is rarely perfect the first (or second, or even third) time for anything but trivial programs. The added complexity of the 34S instruction set, and the required large number of keystrokes makes this capability even more valuable. The "complexity" is of course due to the vast power of the enhanced features in the 34S, so this is not criticism, just acknowledging that the extra power comes with a price (as it always does).

The ultimate result is that most of the significant programs that have been written, debugged and shared (btw, thank you authors) are probably rarely used, due to the tedious task of reentering and the myriad steps Barry described to download, or to re-key on the machine itself, again a frustrating process for long programs.

My recent acquisition of a DM-15C and Torsten's 15C Simulator have dramatically increased the number of programs I've entered to try out, since the "loading" process is very quick allowing more time to explore the problems the program solves. For moderate to complex programs, the time it takes to enter a program typically far exceeds the time then spent using it; after all, I think we want to use the programs more than enter them.

I imagine (just guessing, but feels likely) that the biggest benefit is that more programs would actually be shared, if it's quick and easy to do so. Probably, many of the best 34S programs written by users to date have never been seen by others, simply because it's a pain to do so.

I have none of the programming skills required to do this, so I really shouldn't be complaining about it not being done; rather I'm offering an opinion from a 34S user that doesn't really use it as often as I'd like for the reasons noted.

I love the 34S, I just would like to able to use it, and love it, more.