A86: Personal Intro & Questions (fwd)

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A86: Personal Intro & Questions (fwd)


Hello All, 

I'm a sophomore in Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois.  
I'm new to 86 ASM programming.  I'm about to get an 86 and am just busting at
the seams to program it.  I've read through several books on the Z80, so I 
have a good handle on the processor.  I am just a little hazy on the TI86-
specific info.

I've been reading through this list's archives at ticalc.org for a while 
now (several days) and haven't found _satisfactory_ answers to the following 
questions, so don't tell me to look there.  I also couldn't find any FAQ 
that answered my questions.  If I overlooked something, please give me a 
specific URL to look at for the answer.


*** User Defined Interrupts ***
  - What Interrupt mode does the TI-OS run in? (0, 1, or 2)
  - What are user defined interrupts used for?
  - How are they implemented?
  - How are the the IX-flags related to User Defined Interrupts?
  - How is the RST command related to User Defined Interrupts?

***[sqrt] routines ***:
  - Are these Interrupts?
  - What are they good for?
  - now are they implemented?

*** User Defined Functions ***
  What areas need to be changed in order to install new functions
  like in TI's Applets that can be called from the HomeScreen or 
  a Basic program? I am specifically thinking of functions that can 
  take arguments.

*** User Defined Types ***
  Has anyone implemented their own variable types?  I would like to create
  an arbitrary precision integer type (an integer that grows to sizes only
  limited by available memory).  I saw that there were several "internal 
  use only" type bytes.  Does anyone know if assembly programmers can use 
  these for their own types?
  
  If this has been discussed in this list, I either missed it or didn't 
  quite catch all the terminology used.  

*** Abbreviations and Terms ***
  - "SLP"    / What does this stand for?
  - "FSP"    / What does this stand for?
  - "asap"   / Is this an acronym? Something about menus?  Not "As Soon 
               As Possible". Whether or not it is, what does it mean?
  - "TSR"    / I thought that a TSR was a program that [T]erminates and 
               [S]tays [R]esident (in memory).  That doesn't seem to apply 
               to a calculator, since everything is always in the memory.  
               So what does this refer to in the context of TI-Assembly?
  - "token"  / I thought that a token was how keywords, built-in commands
               were represented after being parsed.  It seems like this
               list also refers to the "type" byte of variables.  What
               is the general definition this list uses?

*** FAQ ***
  I think these questions (and their respective answers) could sustain 
  their own FAQ.  If people think it is a good idea, I'll compile such a 
  document after I get some answers.  If there is anyone else out there 
  maintaining a 86-Assembly FAQ, I'll just send what I end up with to them 
  so they can append it to their FAQ.


Thanks in advance for all the help this list has to offer!

Nathan Linger

ps -- Since there are so many questions in this post, please make sure 
      replies to the above questions have a subject of "Re: ___" where
      ___ is one or more of the corresponding topics above (enclosed 
      in ***'s)
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