On Thursday 7 July 2016, 21:29:04, Rich Mellor (RWAP) wrote :
> Shirley Butler (C-Fix program for use with SuperBASIC C-Port) - not sure if > she > had any more involvement in C-Port. I also emailed Dave Walker, but no > response > from either Hi Rich, I also wrote to Shirley, but had no response. This morning, I tried ringing her on the number she gave in the C-Fix user manual from 1992, but this was unobtainable. Are you still in contact with Freddy Vaccha? Perhaps he might know something. What I would like to do is to get a copy of the source SuperBASIC code for both C-Port and C-Fix. The idea being to update them so that they can work fully with modern day emulators, and also to cure some bugs and generally improve them. I have actually managed to use C-Port with some success. Recently I have C-Ported a 58k SBASIC program into Cee without any problems. I did of course have to keep on changing the code until it finally Cported. The resulting Cee code certainly needed some tinkering with before it would C68 compile. The program was a version of the Travelling Salesman program, which I have been working on with Steve Poole. In my opinion, C-Port is far better than its reputation, but is certainly in need of some improvement. The C-Fix addition is very useful, however it is not complete. The numeric array bases have not been treated. If however the source is unavailable, then how about reverse engineering?Derek, have you thought any more about your idea of reverse engineering Turbo? I would be willing to work with you jointly on this. I am well acquainted with the Turbo parser and understand how it works. If you can regenerate the pseudo-code for C-Port, I am sure I could regenerate the SuperBASIC code from there. What we could end up with is a SuperBASIC program that perhaps works, but would be totally unreadable, since we would not know the original variable names used. We would just have to guess at how it works. But this would be a start. This may take some while to complete, but the more time spent on it, the better it would become. About the legal aspect, I would agree this may be illegal - if we go by the letter of the law. But if we go by the spirit of the law, this may be another matter. We would be producing something that would be of benefit to the whole QL community. I am certain the authors of Turbo / Cport / C-Fix would welcome our contributions. We may not have to go down this road. Who knows - perhaps Freddy Vaccha can come up with the goods - and supply the SuperBASIC sources. If anybody knows him, can you please contact him and ask. Michael _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List
