[Techtoolslist] OT: FIDE x64 and the future

[martin at guddler.co.uk]

Hi Tim,

It's actually pretty easy. It's not really a compiler as such. Hmm, well,
I suppose it is! All it does is convert the commands into 9010 keypresses
pretty much.

The format is actually fully documented in the back of one of the manuals.
I forget which one it is but my money would be on it being a technical or
programming one :)

Martin.


> Hi all,

>

> I just wanted to chime in here. First, thanks to James for FIDE and the

> many

> hours of easy 9010A programming it has provided me.

>

> Secondly, I recently upgraded to Vista x64 and found that FIDE no longer

> works. I was planning to mail James separately but this seems an

> appropriate

> forum. The issue as Martin has alluded is 9lc.exe and its status as a

> 16bit

> exe. As there is no 16bit run time or thunking on x64, it fails badly. I

> was

> happy to accept this as recently I've just been using FIDE to suck scripts

> from the Fluke for storage. Unfortunately, it seems FIDE tries to run 9lc

> when most FIDE - Fluke IO operations occur. These fail and FIDE refuses to

> go further. Is it possible to provide a short-term fix build which allows

> the FIDE - Fluke IO without calling 9lc? A sort of compiled object only

> mode?

>

> The second part, and that which I think is much more important for the

> future when x64 and/or non-intel CPUs become ubiquitous is to define a

> replacement for 9lc. I've not performed any analysis yet, but I would

> anticipate it's a simple, non-relocatable compiler. Are there any details

> 'out there'? Does anybody have any Fluke documentation or tech notes on

> the

> format? I've written compilers before and hopefully in the reaches of my

> brain, enough information remains to get a basic replacement coded. I

> don't

> think I have enough time to reduce 9lc back to source to determine the

> inner

> workings, but I am confident I can find enough time to code a replacement

> from a partial spec.

>

> To make a production grade replacement, I'd need plenty of varied source

> scripts too; if this takes off I'll be back for those later. It would of

> course be released to the public domain.

>

> thanks,

> tim

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