Another HAL update: ignore if not intersted

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Another HAL update: ignore if not intersted

We have been asked several questions about HAL since Thursday and I
decided to answer the common ones in bulk instead of individually (for
obvious reasons).

First of all, HAL has been posted at:
http://members.aol.com/EggplFarms/HAL
There is nothing wrong with this address. You may be having problems
because you don't realize the address is CASE-SENSITIVE.

Second, the IRC party has been rescheduled to TUESDAY. I have contacted
AOL and they say that they don't intend to move the servers any time again
soon. If you still haven't figured out how to get on to EFnet, email me and
I'll
coach you through it.
HAL Release Party: On EFnet in #HAL from 7:00-11:00pm EDT on Tuesday,
August 5, 1997.

We know the documentation for HAL is small and we're working on it. We
also know that the editor is not exactly Windows 95 (it's more reliable), but
we will have a new 32bit editor evailable Tuesday (I hope). If all goes well,
this
one will crash your prgrams BEFORE you write them (I'd like to see Windows
do that; oh wait, I already have).

There have been some qustions raised about the platforms and systems HAL
works on. I thought I made this clear a while ago, but here it is again. HAL
will
compile programs for the TI-82/83/85/86. The HAL compiler requires a DOS
system. The editor requires Windows now and Win95 as of Tuesday (if all goes
well). Any questions?

The BIG BUG in HAL is the divide error. If you get any error consistently
when you compile a demo program, try compiling manually.
To compile manually, save your program, making sure the .hal extension is
included. Go to a DOS prompt and into your HAL directory. Here, watch me:

> C:\HAL>hal85 tank!.asm
> tank!
>
>                          HAL - Higher Assembly Language
>                              Written by Retupmoc 7
>                                 Version 85.0.2
>
>                                  Compiling....
>                                  Optimizing...
>
> done.
>
> C:\HAL>tasm -80 -g3 -r8 -y -i -l tank!.asm
> TASM Z80 Assembler.       Version 3.0.1  June, 1994.
>  Copyright (C) 1985-1994 by Speech Technology Incorporated
> tasm: pass 1 complete.
> tasm: pass 2 complete.
> tasm: Number of errors = 0
> Divide error
>
> C:\HAL>tasm -80 -g3 -r8 -y -i -l tank!.asm
> TASM Z80 Assembler.       Version 3.0.1  June, 1994.
>  Copyright (C) 1985-1994 by Speech Technology Incorporated
> tasm: pass 1 complete.
> tasm: pass 2 complete.
> tasm: Number of errors = 0
> Elapsed time = 1 secs  lines = 1253   lines/sec = 1253
>
> C:\HAL>copy tank!.obj tank!
> Overwrite tank! (Yes/No/All)?y
>         1 file(s) copied
>
> C:\HAL>string85 tank!
>
> STRING85 v4.0   Copyright (C) 1995 Dan Eble & Magnus Hagander
>
> Generating ZShell 4.0 file.
>
> Converting tank! -> tank!.85s   (1971 bytes)
>
> C:\HAL>dir tank!.85s
>
>  Volume in drive C is EGPLNT_FRMS
>  Volume Serial Number is 1C36-0AF2
>  Directory of C:\HAL
>
> TANK!    85S         2,047  08-03-97  1:24a TANK!.85S
>          1 file(s)          2,047 bytes
>          0 dir(s)      34,471,936 bytes free
>
> C:\HAL>link85

Just keep pressing F3 until tasm doesn't give you an error. If tasm always
gives you an error, contact me.