Hi everybody,
This not so short message is to advise the community that an update for the Peersoft utility has been posted on my Website.
The donwloading URL is: http://bgilon.free.fr/apple2/Peersoftv15.zip.Briefly stated, the latest implemented features (which appear in this release) are:
a) Precomputed GOTO/GOSUB within Applesoft program texts. One fact worth of notice is that it is completely transparent to the Applesoft program end user as well as to the Applesoft application author. Performance gain was measured to be around three times the performance of normal GOTO/GOSUB in small to medium size programs (i.e. number of lines < 200); greater performance is to be expected for “real life” applications written in Applesoft BASIC, with even more program source lines). b) From now on and for configurations supporting this (mouse interface required and Apple //c, //e with enhanced ROM, //gs or //c+ to fully benefit from interrupts), MOUSE and TIMER event handlers (based on (i.e. lazily bound to) mouse and VBL hardware interrupts) could be written in Applesoft BASIC with the help of those new keywords with a syntax similar to my understanding of what exists in other flavors of BASIC (whether or not from Microsoft). It uses the same mechanism (on stack GOSUB frames’ creation “ex nihilo”) that supports the coroutines feature within 1.4 release. c) Miscellaneous features: now the companion Applesoft program (designed to illustrate every feature from Peersoft) has been updated to support the SMT noslotclock chip as it is currently supported by the Applewin emulator. A design document (PDF and LibreOffice formats) is available with details on the mechanisms involved and giving hints about future developments in the pipeline (not vaporware, just hints). The user/reference manual (PDF format) has also been updated accordingly to match this release’s features. OK, I missed the end of year 2013 deadline, I missed the end of year 2014 deadline, but I’ll be damned if I miss the end of year 2015 deadline!… Best regards, Benoît