Re: A86: Standards


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Re: A86: Standards



On Sun, 3 Aug 1997, James Yopp wrote:

> Hmm...  I was thinking about this the other day. Before anyone makes a 
> program like this, see what you think of this standard instead.
> 
> (.db 0,h,w, "Icons Might go here!")
> .db 0, "emaN margorP" ;Program Name, 0 backwards
> 

Having space for an icon would be a good idea.  How big should it be,
16x16?  That would take 32 bytes.  We could have 8x8 icons, too, for
displaying more on a screen, like the "details" view in windows.

Rather than putting the title & icon data right at the front of the
program, we should instead just put pointers to them (relative to the
start of the program).  Then, our table would have a fixed format, and be
more easily expandable.  So, what we have so far is something like this:

	.org _asm_exec_ram

	nop                      ; clue that this is a special program
	jp Start
	.dw MagicNumber          ; to make sure this is a valid table
	.dw TableVersion
	.dw PointerToTitle
	.dw PointerToIcons       ; store the icons sequentially, perhaps?
	.dw PointerToExportTable ; to allow other programs to load and use
	                         ; this program's subroutines

	Start:


Any more ideas?  Anyone see anything wrong with this basic format?

--------
Dan Eble (mailto:eble@cis.ohio-state.edu)
         (http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~eble)


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