That’s exciting news, Gary! Could you please post a link to where you published your write-up? I tried googling <https://www.google.com/search?q=Slabtop+Computers+discord+server+in+the+%23NEC+channel> for it (in various <https://www.google.com/search?q=%22SuperROM%22+nec+8201+gary+weber> ways <https://duckduckgo.com/?ia=web&origin=funnel_home_website_measuresearchesaa_treatment&t=h_&q=%22SuperROM%22+nec+8201+gary+weber>) and it doesn’t seem to be available on the open web. I am unfamiliar with discord servers, but I see comments saying they are meant for private discussions, so maybe that’s the problem?
Which reminds me, a while back on this mailing list we were talking about searchability and making sure knowledge is archived in multiple locations. I mentioned you and your most excellent web8201.net site, but I don’t know if you saw it. I said, > *“When I needed to implement VARPTR on the NEC PC-8201, I distinctly > recalled seeing a solution on web8201. Googling with various search > engines, even specifying the site > <https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aweb8201.net+varptr&udm=14&oq=site%3Aweb8201.net+varptr&sclient=gws-wiz-modeless-web-only> > explicitly, turned up nothing except people saying VARPTR doesn’t exist in > N82 BASIC. When I finally stumbled upon the VARPTR page > <https://web8201.net/default.asp?content=XCompat.asp> again, I tried to > save it in the Internet Archive. Unfortunately, the web8201.net > <http://web8201.net> server is configured so that web crawlers (like Google > and Internet Archive) get redirected > <http://waybackmachine.org/https://web8201.net/default.asp?content=XCompat.asp> > to https://default.asp/ <https://default.asp/>. I hope we can create a > public mirror of web8201.net <http://web8201.net> as it contains > information that I haven’t seen anywhere else.”* If you want, I can try to help you figure it out. I don’t know Microsoft IIS-10, but I believe it should be just a small configuration change to fix the issue. —b9 P.S. Your NEC VARPTR <https://web8201.net/default.asp?content=XCompat.asp> code has some minor typos. In line 40020, address 64455 is skipped. In line 40040, the variable *H* is used to mean both the address in memory and the character position in the string. Here’s a patched version which has those fixed and some other tweaks to reduce RAM and string space usage. 39999 'VARPTR 40000 H=0:L=0:TY=0:A=64448! 40010 POKEA,205:POKEA+1,175:POKEA+2,73:POKEA+3,235 40020 POKEA+4,58:POKEA+5,139:POKEA+6,250:POKEA+7,201 40030 L=LEN(VY$):IFL<1ORL>7THENPRINT"Invalid VY$!":STOP 40040 A=64457!:FORH=1TOL:POKEA,ASC(MID$(VY$,H,1)):A=A+1:NEXT:POKEA,0 40050 POKE63912,201:POKE63913,251:EXEC64448 40060 L=PEEK(63912!):H=PEEK(63913!):TY=PEEK(63911!) 40070 RETURN 40080 ' VARPTR for NEC 8201/8300 by Gary Weber of web8201.net 40090 ' Entry: VY$ must contain the name of variable of interest 40100 ' Exit: H & L contain variable's address, TY contains type 40110 ' Example: 40120 ' 100 A$="This is a sample string." 40130 ' 110 VY$="A$":GOSUB 40000 40140 ' 120 PRINT "VARPTR of ";VY$;" is ";L+(H*256) 40141 ' 40144 ' Notes from hackerb9: 40150 ' Name in VY$ must be UPPERCASE. 40160 ' For EXEC, NEC's HL is @63912/3, register A is @63911. 40170 ' Address 64457 is an 8-byte, NULL-terminated copy of VY$. 40180 ' Line 40050 sets HL=64457. (64457 = 201 + 251*256). On Mon, Sep 28, 2026 at 11:41 AM Gary Weber <[email protected]> wrote: > Investigation into this type of project began in 2021. Well.... Guess > what? > [image: image.png] > > My big write-up is out on the Slabtop Computers discord server in the #NEC > channel so I didn't want to duplicate it here. > > But, basically, I'm looking for volunteers to help with testing the > mountain of features in this "pre-alpha" option ROM. > > -- > Gary Weber > [email protected] >
