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And then because I was annoyed with modern coding, but I'm still too caffeinated, I got back to dinking around with the Atari ST. Hisoft BASIC crashes too often for my fun, so GFA 3.5 it is.

But PRINT goes thru the VT-52 emulator, so you can't draw control chars. Gotta hit the AES(?) routines, which draw weirdly.

Program in alt text.

I could build something interesting on this stuff…
#retrocomputing #atari #atarist #basic

in reply to Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🕹 🙄

GFA keyboard controls are nuts. Top bar shows shift-F-keys, then F-keys. ESC flips to the graphics window/command line.

You might say "well it was early times", but no, GEM programs have alt-XCV clipboard, shift-arrow select, etc. VERY like Lisa/Mac not at all legally dubious. Mark Williams C has a standard microemacs and sh, with vi or emacs modes. I could install SteVIe and have a very nice vi. No, this program is just *weird*.

#retrocomputing #atari #atarist

in reply to Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🕹 🙄

And you shouldn't think this is a plain text editor with a compiler. It's a structured BASIC editor that only beeps and doesn't let you leave a line that's invalid. Then it reindents it and sets uppercase keywords.

If you don't know what you're doing in it, it's reset-your-ST time.

Kids Today™ whine that they can't figure out :wq in vi, they need to use GFA BASIC and understand that you read the fucking manual before operating a program.
#retrocomputing #atari #atarist #basic

in reply to Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🕹 🙄

I'm pretty sure you can configure it to choose how the keyword casing should be done. It's been a decade or two since I actively used it though.
in reply to Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🕹 🙄

Been poking around, and I don't think I have any of my '90s-era ST code anymore. It was archived on my gopherhole and first web site, and I thought I saved everything when I made second site with the blog. But it's not where I expect.

The Java code from '95-ish is in there.

Hrmn. I dunno who else could've archived it, if anyone. I suspect it's just lost to the ether. Bits for the bit god.

😭 (eh, I'll live)

in reply to Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🕹 🙄

And my battlestation at [CONSLUTTING] in 2006.

Below is a minifridge so I could keep my Josta cold.

No partitions because "it's open!"
#battlestations

screwlisp reshared this.

in reply to Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🕹 🙄

@k3ym0 yah dual monitors has been the proper way for many generations… even if it was just two VT-100 terminals next to each other ;)
in reply to k3ym𖺀

@k3ym0 when dumb terminals got cheap you might as well exploit your extra serial ports and use screen to jump around ;)
in reply to PopeASDF

@PopeASDF @k3ym0 I used to run a single dumb terminal (Perkin-Elmer Data Systems!) on my ST and x86 boxes, as a debug terminal. I could just print to it while full-screen graphics was going, or connect it as a user, and debug stuff in text even if the screen crashed.
in reply to Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🕹 🙄

nobody i talk to seems to remember josta. i often thought i dreamed it up.

i don't remember it being around as late as 2006, though. i thought it had been discontinued before Y2K.

in reply to hobbsc

@hobbsc It was actually probably Guaraná Antarctica from the Brazilian café, or Bawls, but if I say "Josta" people might know what it is.
in reply to Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🕹 🙄

big fan of your alternatives, too. had josta in the states in the late 90s, lived in brazil for a while and fell in love with antartica, just in time to come back and discover bawls. what a time to be alive (and caffeinated)
in reply to hobbsc

@hobbsc I've been at least 50% sleepier since that time ended. I can still order some of them, but it's OK to only be a little bit caffeinated.

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