Page 1 of 1

Extended ROM BASIC

PostPosted: August 10th, 2013, 2:26 pm
by AltairClone
Extended ROM BASIC 16K for the Altair has been added to the "ROMs" directory on the Altair Clone Support page (http://AltairClone.com/support.htm).

This is the real ROM-based product from MITS that executes directly from ROM and therefore does not use RAM to store BASIC itself. Conveniently, MITS put the content of the Disk Bootloader ROM in the last 256 bytes of the last Extended BASIC ROM so your system still has the ability to boot from disk even when BASIC is in ROM. For consistency, I updated the last ROM of the 8K ROM BASIC to also include the disk bootloader code.

Since Extended BASIC in ROM leaves only 48K of RAM, you’ll need a 48K or smaller CP/M to run when Extended BASIC is in ROM. Normally, MOVCPM and SYSGEN are used to create and write a CP/M to match the RAM size of your system, unfortunately, the Burcon CP/M for the Altair did not come with MOVCPM (or it was lost somehow over the years). I am working on a MOVCPM for the Burcon CP/M and will publish it in the next few days.

Mike