FORTH for the SHARP PC-E500 (S)

[robve]

(09-29-2021 09:23 PM)Helix Wrote:  Transfer over serial is slow because of the loop with the POKE instruction, but it's reliable. And waiting a few minutes is not a big deal. It's done just once.

Glad to hear you don't mind the wait

I wonder if the following simple optimization reduces the transfer time by reading 8 bytes at once:
30 FOR J=A TO A+N-1 STEP 8: INPUT#1,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I: POKE J,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I: NEXT J

If the input file is not a multiple of 8 bytes, then you can save it with padding zeros to make it a multiple of 8.

(09-29-2021 09:23 PM)Helix Wrote:  I have a 256KB machine, so I don't have space problems.
Can you confirm that an internal RAM disk "E:" must be created after loading Forth500? The only memory map I know for the PC-E500 is in this page:
http://www.andrewwoods3d.com/pce500/dumptool.html
I suppose that space for RAM disk E: is reserved just ahead of the machine code area.

I'm away, so I don't have my E500 with me to try (at home I have a E500S expanded to 256KB, one regular E500S with a 32K RAM card for the F: drive and one E500). I believe the E500(S) moves the RAM disk to lower memory when allocating space, but I could be wrong. Did memory allocation fail when you have an E: drive? Perhaps the E: drive is too big? Allocating space fails if the E: drive and BASIC Programs do not leave enough space for Forth500.

- Rob