Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!hobbes.physics.uiowa.edu!maverick.ksu.ksu.edu!unlinfo.unl.edu!hoss!greg
From: greg@hoss.unl.edu (Lig Lury Jr.)
Subject: Re: MD-BASIC (was:Re: Apple ][ BBS Software)
Message-ID: <1991May31.195139.8979@unlinfo.unl.edu>
Sender: news@unlinfo.unl.edu
Nntp-Posting-Host: hoss.unl.edu
Organization: GBBS/ACOS Sysop Support
References: <16292@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <1520025@hpcc01.HP.COM>
Date: Fri, 31 May 1991 19:51:39 GMT
Lines: 49

drudman@hpcc01.HP.COM (Drew Rudman) writes:

>GBBS on the other hand provides you with a completely new programming language
>(very similar to basic so the transition is not that difficult) that offers
>text file based source code and a compiler.  No run-time interpretation of
>your system segments.

Er, it is interpreted.  In fact, one can take the .C (or .G, if it is the
older version) file and "decompile" it into the .S file again, lacking the
original comments and non-PUBLIC labels.  (Given generic names.)  I have a
C program to do that now.

>The ACOS programming
>language does have its quirks,

Oh ACOS, how it bugs you, let me count the ways... ACOS needs to go
through a lot of bug fixes, which L&L seems to refuse that they exist.
You have to be able to tell them exactly how to reproduce the error, which
is near to impossible.  One I found I traced back to it not liking to be
run with my ProDOS v1.7 with Bird's Better Bye.  Its lack of arrays is its
worst point.

>but with improvements such as MACOS and METAL,
>the language has become quite robust and very quick.

MACOS is of dubious legal status, and METAL is a separate program
altogether.  Now if there was an ACOS->METAL translator (and there was a
driver for my modem) I'd switch very quickly.  I'd love to help get it
working.  Right now, when I switch over, I'm strictly local.  I'm going to
need to make lots of changes.  Hotkeys have got to go.

>As far as networking goes, it is very easy to set up networking modules for
>GBBS (take a look at Ogg-Net, a 30 system network, hubbed across the US.)  It
>may not have Internet support, but creating support for it would be very easy
>for a decent ACOS programmer.

In fact there are people working on this now.  Already there is support
available for sysops via Internet mail.  I run the thing.  METAL support
is available too.

>[ Call...              9600bps/60meg ][ Drew Rudman                          ]
>[   Apple ][              IBM        ][ Internet: drudman@hpiosa.corp.hp.com ]
>[          (415) 321-4713            ][ The Charge BBS: Axe Slinger (#1)     ]

--
///   ____   \\\ "The major problem--one of the major problems, for there are
| |/ /    \ \| |       several--one of the many major problems with governing
 \\_|\____/|_//            people is of whom you get to do it, or more to the
greg \_\\\/ hoss.unl.edu    point, who gets people to let them do it to them."
