Charlie implemented a Amiga 1.x compatible version of the FreePascal compiler. It’s a little bit harder to write program for 1.x so many features are missing in Workbench 1.x. These machines are usually 7 Mhz and only very little RAM, so cross compiling is highly advised. Of course the Online compiler would be a good starting point for basic tests.
And that is exactly what I did, I created a separate Online Compiler for the Amiga 1.x Version, why separate, because most of the sources of the original Online Amiga FreePascal Compiler will not work with 1.x. I included a creation of a bootable ADF file directly from the executable created so you can directly try your work inside a UAE instance for example in the very nice Scripted Amiga Emulator.
See for yourself:
So if you are locked inside your home because of corona, why not do something new and start to learn to code FreePascal for Amiga. Have fun.
Online Compiler for all Amiga OS3.x, OS4, MorphOS, AROS: Link
Implemented basic sorting and search function including replace, very basic but working, also the sorting close to the LibreOffice sorting, multi key sorting (up to 3 but in principle could make more, but is more than 3 really useful?) Together with the Format options this should be enough for a new LEU Version release Leu 0.08.
Fixed a little bug in Leu regarding number format. If no number format was selected the output format was one char too long, resulting in very ugly rounding errors. Already long time before I started to implement a solution to set the number format for a cell. But it was very crude and not ready to release, so I deactivated it for Leu 0.07. But this bug got me back to work. 😉 I started to implement a format settings window, a little bit inspired by the LibreOffice one. Finally its working, not perfect but already usable.
Also fixed some small problems with the color blending on selection for RTG systems (for <15bit screens it will just use a fixed color for the selection) and new now the fixed col/row will show where the selected cell is. much easier to find, especially if it is out of scroll area.
Updated Online Amiga FPC Compiler again with the latest CRT unit and also tried a bunch of console based games using CRT units, all work more or less (some need some adjustments in the code) some of them are even single file pascal source files, so can be used in the online compiler.
Fixed some little problems on MorphOS and also some little problems inside the DeadCold code (missing error checking) and for that I forked the original repository to my github.
Tried DeadCold on my Draco (in principle 68060 Amiga with RTG Card) and it works rather ok, certainly playable. With some little errors of course, but a nice showcase that it can work.
On my Amiga 1200 (030/AGA) it also work but the colors are not there, needs some debugging.
On AROS the rouge-like Game DeadCold works already rather nicely so I decided to make a little release, maybe someone want to try and see if it also work on other AROS installations.
Someone might ask how the crt is going, and how useful this is already. I want to answer it with a little screenshot:
DeadCold on AROS
That is a nice little rouge-like game called DeadCold, written in FreePascal for the console. As you can see it runs and the picture looks right. (it’s not perfectly right, but somehow usable). And because a little video tells much more about how this game runs here is also a little video about it:
There are some drawing problems, especially on the messages and sometimes some of the map disappear but not bad I would say. There are also some messages about removing critter failed… but that seems some error in the game code.
The colors is badly hacked for now, and only works for AROS, I’m not sure if I can upload that this status to the official repository, I will work on it a bit more.
Most Tutorials about Pascal use the CRT unit in a very early Lesson. They use it only for ReadKey() to wait for a key at end of Program. It would be of course the same to just use a ReadLn and wait for an Enter.
I tried already to implement CRT before using an old implementation, but exactly this ReadKey implementation does not work at all when KingCON or other console replacements is used.
Now I got a hint in MorphOS Forum (always a very good Source for Implementation hints) to set the console in RAW: mode (using SetMode()) and then just read from the console the pressed keys. If console in raw mode, one can read cursor keys and F keys from the console.
I tried that and on MorphOS and AmigaOS3 it works well, Read blocks until a Button is pressed. But AROS of course is different again 😉 it always returns a Value sometimes 185, sometimes 184, not really know what that means. I thought about some kind of timer event but this should look different.
But finally it works, mapped some keys like F-keys and cursor. Also worked on the output gotoxy and colors, the colors are a little bit tricky, because the Amiga console only supports the first 8 pens (as far as I see it) so I cannot just ObtainBestPen, and the first 8 Pens are usually fixed and not the colors I need. I try to change them with ObtainPen but when they are already taken I just try to find one which has a close color, which does not work very well. Solution unknown.
I compile the example of ReadKey as example3.pas and compiled a little RPG-Game I found which is console based, which is a good testcase for colors and GotoXY. Of course looks not the same as in the DOS console but it is usable.
One disadvantage of writing a program relying on web resources is, that you have to update that program everytime the webresource is changed/updated. In the next days the search for MUIMapparium will break again, and the Find by IP/ Find me is broken a while before already.
So I updated MUIMapparium to Version 0.8 I also added some small new features, like some more shortcuts and also by popular demand to jump automatically to the first search result. Best update soon before the search function does not work anymore.
Also the 68k freepascal compiler got some updates which hopefully improve the stability and speed of the m68k-amiga Version.
