FORTH for the SHARP PC-E500 (S)

[Klaus Overhage]

How to use LOADM, UUENCODE, UUDECODE and the rediscovered SAVEM to load FORTH500.

If you have a PC-E500 with 256k RAM and somehow managed to load the expanded version of FORTH500, you can use the following command to save a copy as a file on the RAM disk:
SAVE M "E:FORTH500", &B0000, &B480B
SAVE M "Filename", start address, end address
The end address results from:
Start address + program length - 1, i.e. &B0000 + 18444 - 1 = &B480B

The file is reloaded later with LOADM "FORTH500". The two spellings LOADM and LOAD M or SAVEM and SAVE M each have the same effect.

The file created with SAVEM is 16 bytes longer than the program length: The "FORTH500" file has 18460 bytes. These 16 bytes are at the beginning of the file and contain, among other things, the program length and the start address. I tried to load FORTH500.BIN and FORTH500.OBJ with LOADM and got (luckily) "I/O error" as an answer. Only SAVEM generates the header required for LOADM. It would be nice if there was also a PC program for this ...

With the help of the UUCODE program mentioned by Helix from http://www.it-pulse.eu/sharp-pc-e500s, the file FORTH500.UUE attached below was created from the file saved with SAVEM. It went like this:

Load UUENCODE.BAS into the PC-E500 and change a line:
Before: 130 FNAME $ = "UUENCODE"
After: 130 FNAME $ = "UUENCODE.MMM"
Without this change, a file is saved on the ramdisk, which can't be loaded or deleted. Then run the program that has just been changed with RUN:
UUENCODE SELF-DECODER
DATA_FILE = 'UUENCODE.MMM' OK?
(Y / N) = Y <Return>
success
There is now a new file UUENCODE.MMM with 1760 bytes. The BASIC program currently in use can be deleted with NEW.
LOAD M "UUENCODE.MMM"
CALL &BE000 "FORTH500
uuencode V1.0 by E.Kako
after 15 seconds.
encoded.
There is now a new file FORTH500.UUE with 26303 bytes, which is attached below.

FORTH500 can now also be installed in a PC-E500 as follows:
COPY "COM:" TO "E: FORTH500.UUE", A
duration: 6 minutes 48 seconds
Load UUDECODE.BAS into the PC-E500 and change a line:
Before: 130 FNAME $ = "UUDECODE."
After: 130 FNAME $ = "UUDECODE.MMM"
Then run the program that has just been changed with RUN:
UUENCODE SELF-DECODER
DATA_FILE = 'UUDECODE.MM'
OK? (Y / N) = Y <Return>
success
There is now a new file UUDECODE.MMM with 1446 bytes. The BASIC program currently in use can be deleted with new.
LOAD M "UUDECODE.MMM"
CALL &BE000"FORTH500.UUE
uudecode V1.1 by E.Kako
filename = 'E: FORTH500.'
after approx. 3 minutes
decoded.
There is now a new file "FORTH500" with 18460 bytes, which can be loaded with LOADM "FORTH500" and run with CALL &B0000.