Re: LZ:83 ASM

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Re: LZ:83 ASM

On Wed, 28 Aug 1996, The Piper @ The Gates of Dawn wrote:


> > actaually there is a need for a sehll on teh ti-83.. teh code is 
> > stored in ascii representation which makes code at least twice as 
> > large as it needs to be (although it does let you edit it using teh 
> > program editor)
> > there is a need for a shell program that will 'compress' a program 
> > into a binary file, and 'uncompress it' back to ascii representation 
> > when it is run..
> > 
> 
> Ok, that makes a bit more sense...but wouldn't a program that does it 
> be easier than writing a shell that does it....
 
 
A shell will make it transparent to the user.  They can just run
the program and not have to think about compressing and decompressing.
Also, I think there'll be some other advantages to a shell.  While
playing around with the little program I'm working on I thought of
a couple of things.  I haven't had a chance to touch it for a couple
of weeks so I don't remember what they are now.


There are all kinds of ways to do it.  A shell isn't essential.  But
I think it'll be a good approach.  And this should be a pretty small
shell.  It'll need to manage the files and compress and decompress.
RLL compression is pretty simple and doesn't need a lot of code.
Huffman encoding would be better but take more code.  It just might
save more space than it needs, though.  I've never written a Huffman
routine, but I think I know where there some Z80 source for one.  If
anyone is interested in it, let me know and I'll see if I can locate
it.


By the way, for the code thiefs among us (such as me) is everyone
aware that there is a huge collection of CP/M Z80 and 8080 source
code on oak.oakland.edu in (I think) /pub/cpm?  If you haven't
seen it you'll be amazed at how much there is.  Most of the programs
wouldn't be worth porting to the TI, but some might be.  But there
are all sorts of routines there that can be used, such as the
compression routines and graphic algorithms for 3d animation, etc.
It's worth looking at.


Barry
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