On Wed, 24 Dec 2008, Charlie wrote:

>
> "lyricalnanoha" 
wrote in message
> news:alpine.DEB.0.99.0812241421001.24180{at}andisteele.dosius.ath.cx...
>
>> SNIP<
>
>>
>> One usually considers the highest-level stuff as needing to be loaded from
>> disk, but it would seem with the IIgs that the high-level stuff is in ROM,
>> and only the low-level stuff needs to be pulled from disk!
>
> Well, the IIgs has much of the toolbox in ROM but as new tools were added
> and old ones patched more and more ended up being loaded from disk.  I also
> doubt that the ROM 3 and ROM 1 have the same entry points for the toolbox
> routine (not sure about that) since all tool calls are done through a table
> that is set up initially.
> The really low-level stuff is done pretty much like you are used to with any
> other Apple II.  Stuffing stuff in registers and banging on softswitches.

Or any machine, really.

From the little stuff I've read so far it might be possible to translate 
the TOOL files over and actually load them manually - if I have to do that 
I prolly can.

KEGS can use all 3 firmware versions.

>> Easy enough to switch to 16-bit mode, call the toolbox, drop to 6502 mode,
>> not?
>
> Yes but...
>
> Many (but not all) the toolsets require initialization which can mean
> allocating memory for their own stack space and zero page (called direct
> page in GS speak).  This space can only reside in bank $00.  If you are not
> using the memory manager then you would have to be real careful that you
> weren't stepping on your program.

Hm.  If I'm tacking into FPBASIC that might be a little tricky.

> Good luck.  It sounds like neat project and a good way to learn the ins and
> outs of an Apple IIGS.

:)

I came up with the further thought that I wonder how hard the toolbox is 
to work with if I want to make a simple app.  There's a couple particular 
ones I been thinking of.

If push comes to shove, I can try to "roll" the 65C02 space in and out 
when calling the toolbox, it would take a huge performance hit though.

My ideas are, like, this kind of stuff -

1. TTY I/O hook (e.g., for BASIC)
2. BASIC extensions on the & vector, possibly
3. Simple program launcher (DOS 3.3 and ProDOS)

-uso.
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