Hmm, based on the (handwritten!) notes on Table F-2 in http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/exidy/DP500..., it looks like pressing Graphic+key would allow you to enter BASIC tokens from 0x80 to 0xBF, while pressing Graphic+Shift+key would allow you to access 0xC0 to 0xC6. By inference, it seems like Graphic+Shift+key should allow access to the entire 0xC0 to 0xFF space, but most of those keys are undocumented.
Based on this, I wonder if it's worth trying the following:
10 REM [Graphic+Shift+=] [_] [(] [Graphic+Shift+NumpadPlus] [2] [Graphic+Shift+NumpadEquals] [Graphic+Shift+Numpad6] [Graphic+Shift+0]
Note that you'll probably need an emulator with accurate keyboard emulation - or a real device - in order to type these in. However, with the emulator from http://www.liaquay.co.uk/sorcerer, I was able to confirm that Graphic+Shift+0 produced 201 (rendered as F4), and Graphic+Shift+= produced 255 (rendered as S), so I think this approach will work.
See this is why I never understood LISP people proudly proclaiming that “code is data and data is code”… we were doing this in BASIC for decades already!
It always feels a bit like lost magic. But at the same time, it's also something that was only enabled by the very high determinism of these old home systems. The design relies on having fixed RAM locations, no multiprocessing, etc.
Incredible to find out that typing the paper program would not have worked, though. And in such a disappointing way no less.
I sometimes wonder if there is still a lot of that magic in the tech world, but were so used to having everything abstracted away from us in multiple layers that we've lost the ability to look for it.
I think about the TLA hackers who do seemingly impossible things. Surely they must operate on this level.
Because I started in that era, I sometimes think that’s why I was motivated to learn synthetic programming for the HP 41, write the first disassembler for the HP 48SX’s ROM, why I wrote jailbreak software on the iPhone before the App Store existed. Tiny limited environments most resemble where I first coded.
This is exactly how we used to do machine code on the Sinclair ZX81, too, where there was no way to declare a block of memory as "off limits" to BASIC, and no DATA statements like in the later (and much bigger) ZX Spectrum BASIC.
Then you'd do "RANDOMISE USR 16514" to start it. Actually USR was interesting because it would pass back the contents of BC when your machine code routine returned to BASIC.
Those were the times when programming a computer was an adventure in and of itself, bastardizing BASIC with assembler. Doubtlessly the first Make Your Own Adventure setting!
I thought it was cute that it used the RND() function to seed things necessary to generate each room .. so I used that technique in my own Oric game, which generates a large blob of graphics data using the RND() seed, meaning I don't have to ship that data in the program itself. I find the pseudo-ness of the RNG infinitely resourceful in that regard ..
Another cute trick on the Oric Atmos is to seed the 14 registers of its synth chip with ROM data .. meaning the Oric Atmos has literally THOUSANDS of onboard sound presets to choose from - once you find them, of course. So I wrote a program to find the most interesting ones and have been accruing a list of "synth presets" that come onboard with the Oric, for use in my game.
Its quite rewarding to go back to these machines and use such techniques to generate nearly-infinite levels/sounds/etc.
> I find the pseudo-ness of the RNG infinitely resourceful in that regard
I can't remember how the ORIC BASIC does it but a cool property of LFSRs as PRNGs is that if you pick the right taps and length they must cycle through every possible number from 1 to (2^length)-1 exactly once, excluding zero. That's how the Wolfenstein "Fizzle Fade" effect worked - set up an LFSR long enough that every possible pixel can be visited once, with a few left over, and then throw away any that don't fit.
Hmm, based on the (handwritten!) notes on Table F-2 in http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/exidy/DP500..., it looks like pressing Graphic+key would allow you to enter BASIC tokens from 0x80 to 0xBF, while pressing Graphic+Shift+key would allow you to access 0xC0 to 0xC6. By inference, it seems like Graphic+Shift+key should allow access to the entire 0xC0 to 0xFF space, but most of those keys are undocumented.
Based on this, I wonder if it's worth trying the following:
Note that you'll probably need an emulator with accurate keyboard emulation - or a real device - in order to type these in. However, with the emulator from http://www.liaquay.co.uk/sorcerer, I was able to confirm that Graphic+Shift+0 produced 201 (rendered as F4), and Graphic+Shift+= produced 255 (rendered as S), so I think this approach will work.[delayed]
See this is why I never understood LISP people proudly proclaiming that “code is data and data is code”… we were doing this in BASIC for decades already!
And in assembler and machine code before that!
I'm persuaded that just about every language is "homoiconic" and that _bicameral syntax_ is the actually-interesting thing about Lisps : https://parentheticallyspeaking.org/articles/bicameral-not-h...
This makes me sad about the history that has been forgotten. I never used a Sorcerer but I knew what the code was for at a glance.
It always feels a bit like lost magic. But at the same time, it's also something that was only enabled by the very high determinism of these old home systems. The design relies on having fixed RAM locations, no multiprocessing, etc.
Incredible to find out that typing the paper program would not have worked, though. And in such a disappointing way no less.
It always feels a bit like lost magic.
I sometimes wonder if there is still a lot of that magic in the tech world, but were so used to having everything abstracted away from us in multiple layers that we've lost the ability to look for it.
I think about the TLA hackers who do seemingly impossible things. Surely they must operate on this level.
Because I started in that era, I sometimes think that’s why I was motivated to learn synthetic programming for the HP 41, write the first disassembler for the HP 48SX’s ROM, why I wrote jailbreak software on the iPhone before the App Store existed. Tiny limited environments most resemble where I first coded.
It certainly tarnishes the shine to have a per-OS-version table of offsets to patch ;(
This is exactly how we used to do machine code on the Sinclair ZX81, too, where there was no way to declare a block of memory as "off limits" to BASIC, and no DATA statements like in the later (and much bigger) ZX Spectrum BASIC.
Then you'd do "RANDOMISE USR 16514" to start it. Actually USR was interesting because it would pass back the contents of BC when your machine code routine returned to BASIC.
I managed to get that easter egg into libvirt - it listens on ports 16509 and 16514 (https://libvirt.org/remote.html).
Sorry, I’m lost after looking at that page. Can you explain your comment?
Those were the times when programming a computer was an adventure in and of itself, bastardizing BASIC with assembler. Doubtlessly the first Make Your Own Adventure setting!
The Oric Atmos won the 10-line BASIC Programming Competition in 2022 with a 1000-room dungeon crawler named "SNAKE TEMPLE":
https://bunsen.itch.io/the-snake-temple-by-rax
IN 10 LINES OF BASIC!!
I thought it was cute that it used the RND() function to seed things necessary to generate each room .. so I used that technique in my own Oric game, which generates a large blob of graphics data using the RND() seed, meaning I don't have to ship that data in the program itself. I find the pseudo-ness of the RNG infinitely resourceful in that regard ..
Another cute trick on the Oric Atmos is to seed the 14 registers of its synth chip with ROM data .. meaning the Oric Atmos has literally THOUSANDS of onboard sound presets to choose from - once you find them, of course. So I wrote a program to find the most interesting ones and have been accruing a list of "synth presets" that come onboard with the Oric, for use in my game.
Its quite rewarding to go back to these machines and use such techniques to generate nearly-infinite levels/sounds/etc.
> I find the pseudo-ness of the RNG infinitely resourceful in that regard
I can't remember how the ORIC BASIC does it but a cool property of LFSRs as PRNGs is that if you pick the right taps and length they must cycle through every possible number from 1 to (2^length)-1 exactly once, excluding zero. That's how the Wolfenstein "Fizzle Fade" effect worked - set up an LFSR long enough that every possible pixel can be visited once, with a few left over, and then throw away any that don't fit.
That was a wild ride!