mailto: blog -at- heyrick -dot- eu

REdit

Something I've been on-and-off working on for a while now is a dinky little text editor called REdit (whoo, no weird names!).

Written in C and running it at around 19KiB total (including messages and such), it is intended for times when you either don't want to enter the full RISC OS Desktop world (and use Zap/StrongEd) or you cannot (such as RISC OS Pico).

Here are some screenshots. First, the editor as it will appear to you:

Now, as it will appear with some content:

Pressing F1 gives help:

The editor will work in whatever your current screen mode is, so long as it isn't stupidly small (so don't waste time with MODE 2!) or stupidly large (over 255 characters across the screen). A nice mode to use (though it depends upon your monitor) is MODE 28, a straight 640×480 VGA mode.

This is an alpha release. There are bugs. A specific one is that Ctrl-Down and End sometimes seem to place the text off-by-one-line. There will be other bugs. This is simply a sneak preview of a work in progress that I've been adding bits to from time to time.
That said, it worked sufficiently well that I could write the entire !Help file using it.

 

Spring is coming

And about time!

Almond blossom:


While it isn't sunlit, I love the water droplets. This is my PC's backdrop.


The soft focus and evening sun make these flowers stand out.

Japanese Quince:


The Japanese Quince always provides a splash of vivid colour in early Spring.

Daffodils:


Taken on the same cold morning as the first Almond blossom picture, the dew gives this daffodil an ethereal texture.


These were planted by the previous occupant, so these daffodils have been going strong for over a quarter of a century!

Tree frog:


Do not adjust your monitor, it really was ectoplasm-green.

It isn't quite time for the cherry blossom. Maybe by the end of the week if the weather is pleasant enough?

 

  • The full sized pictures are 4032×2268, JPEG. Some have been cropped.
    File size depends upon the picture, but estimate about two and a half megabytes.
    Email me (address at top of page) if you are interested in licensing any of them.

 

Speaking of frogs...

Mom picked up a cookbook in vide grenier earlier today. I don't recall the title, something like "Simple traditional meals you can make in minutes with one arm tied behind your back".

Need I say more?

 

Orange phone line woes

I got a text from Orange last Monday. After the line had been repaired.

Uh-hu.

 

What were they thinking?!?!?

I have a copy of the Arthur PRMs. I don't know where, but the 4corn site has uploaded scans to the misc docs. It's interesting seeing this snapshot of programmer documentation for the first Archimedes machines, the system that would eventually become RISC OS. The system that was barely more than "BBC MOS ported to ARM".

While this is the digital equivalent of the dirty mould-encrusted time capsules that we buried as children, dig up many years later...and really wish we hadn't... there is one thing that stands out as messed up beyond all belief. This should have been a terrible idea, even then. Was this some bored writer's attempt at trolling (before trolling was a thing), or was this written in all seriousness?

"However, it is clear that any major piece of software written for the A-series machines should be implemented as a module [...]"

Yes. Of course. Because there is absolutely no problem whatsoever with the module area intended for system resident utilities (like a DLL or TSR in x86 terms) being stuffed with application code.
Because there is absolutely no problem whatsoever with the module area's utterly failed attempt at garbage collection (the RMTidy command has never worked, and can never work because if it did what it was supposed to, everything with workspace in the RMA will find that workspace has moved - instant gnarly crash).
Because here is absolutely no problem whatsoever with the possibility of modules running in a privileged mode. Entering a module with RMEnter starts in USR mode. Every other entry point starts in either SVC (most) or IRQ (callbacks, etc) mode.
Because there was no concept of paging on Arthur (the Desktop, uh... was a gaudy coloured demo more than anything serious), there is surely no possible justification for stuffing applications into unmovable memory by default. A BASIC debugger has reason, it has to work around a live BASIC program. An application such as a painting program? Uh...nope.

 

 

Your comments:

Please note that while I check this page every so often, I am not able to control what users write; therefore I disclaim all liability for unpleasant and/or infringing and/or defamatory material. Undesired content will be removed as soon as it is noticed. By leaving a comment, you agree not to post material that is illegal or in bad taste, and you should be aware that the time and your IP address are both recorded, should it be necessary to find out who you are. Oh, and don't bother trying to inline HTML. I'm not that stupid! ☺ ADDING COMMENTS DOES NOT WORK IF READING TRANSLATED VERSIONS.
 
You can now follow comment additions with the comment RSS feed. This is distinct from the b.log RSS feed, so you can subscribe to one or both as you wish.

David Pilling, 28th March 2017, 03:37
<boast>I have the early ring bound one, photocopied ring bound, before the ones above - the one that tells you how to destroy the chips from software</> Back in t'early days one did use RMTidy and the machine carry on running. Not much later one got the message that it was not the thing to do. When they said write apps as modules perhaps they were thinking of things like Basic. First major apps - FWP and so on were not modules, absolute code, just like now. Mostly major apps on the BBC where modules. Perhaps that is where the idea originated.

Add a comment (v0.11) [help?] . . . try the comment feed!
Your name
Your email (optional)
Validation Are you real? Please type 52881 backwards.
Your comment
French flagSpanish flagJapanese flag
Calendar
«   March 2017   »
MonTueWedThuFriSatSun
  1234
67891112
131415161718
202122232526
272831  

Advent Calendar 2023
(YouTube playlist)

(Felicity? Marte? Find out!)

Last 5 entries

List all b.log entries

Return to the site index

Geekery

Search

Search Rick's b.log!

PS: Don't try to be clever.
It's a simple substring match.

Etc...

Last read at 17:55 on 2024/03/28.

QR code


Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional
Valid CSS
Valid RSS 2.0

 

© 2017 Rick Murray
This web page is licenced for your personal, private, non-commercial use only. No automated processing by advertising systems is permitted.
RIPA notice: No consent is given for interception of page transmission.

 

Have you noticed the watermarks on pictures?
Next entry - 2017/03/24
Return to top of page