Universal Boot

[Derek_Stewart]

No, you mentioned this in the last message.

Minerva is QDOS

[M68008]

Removing parts of the QL stock ROMs, however, would be a bit more difficult. To my knowledge, there's no full disassembly of any of the Sinclair ROMs (there are partial ones, but none that would allow you to recompile to an identical binary - which I see as a precondition for such an exercise)

There is the ROM JS disassembly, it assembles to a nearly identical binary.

[bwinkel67]

There is the ROM JS disassembly, it assembles to a nearly identical binary.

Minerva might be a better start since it must have a more efficient implementation of SuperBASIC. How else would they have squeezed in more features. So if you start with Minerva and remove some of its convenience features, replacing them with new ones, then you keep compatible with most software.

[Derek_Stewart]

sounds great, why can you produce a working system?

[pjw]

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I wasn't concerned in creating a full feature "HOME_" extension system. I just needed the "HOME_" extentions to be available to BASIC so that the "boot" program knew where it was running from.

So far I have only tested it under emulation, but it seems to work.

Here's the first working draft (Version 1.01)
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Is this a possible solution, or am I missing something?

Very nice! I havent tested extensively, but it seems to do what it says on the tin..

[Mark Swift]

Very nice! I havent tested extensively, but it seems to do what it says on the tin..

Thanks.
It took longer than expected and I nearly gave up on it a few times.

Current v1.01 source for the HOME_DIR extension here...

HOMED.zip

(8.67 KiB) Downloaded 28 times

[pjw]

BTW the keyword WHERE clashes with DP's IDIS0 eponymous procedure, part of their "intelligent" disassembler. I published FindKey%, an S*BASIC function to test for the presence of any particular keyword. The advantage is that it doesnt leave a residue. You can find the latest version at Knoware/Articles if interested.

[RalfR]

IDIS (I just know the SE version) also had an extension "ISIT", which does the same. I think there will be a lot more extensions that do the same thing.