8,732
edits
Changes
no edit summary
We were able to get the source code for the assembler from another TI group. All the I/O routines expected a dumb terminal, and so they had to be converted for use with the /4A keyboard and screen. I also added a routine to dump the symbol table. In retrospect, the code could have been a lot cleaner and more compact, but I can probably say that about any program I write today after I have finished it. We decided to include the LInes program as an example of how to program the new video chip, as well as instant gratification for Mini Memory customers.
My final task was in this coop session was to go out to La Jolla, California and work with Control Data Corporation and educate and support them in their efforts to port the Plato series of computer-cased courseware to the 99/4A. I spend about a month out there, and in that time I wrote the graphics and disk I/O package for the Plato interpreter. A byproduct of this work was an intermediate tool, DISKO0, which was used for debugging the disk I/O package. I understand this program eventually made it into the public domain. For those of you familiar with this tool, there is a whimsical menu choice, "Resign/Go to Black's Beach". Black's Beach is a nude beach in La Jolla:).
I returned to school in the fall of 1982, but only lasted for one semester. At that time I joined with my Parsec partner, [[Jim Dramis]] and the author or [[TI Invaders]], [[Garth Dollahite]], along with two business types and we formed a company called SoftMachine. Our charter was to author, produce and market game cartridges for the TI 99/4A, kind of like the TI version of Activision. White Softmachine was in existence, we wrote three games of our own and converted two games for [[Atarisoft]]. The games we wrote during that time were:
[[Category:Software programmer]]
