Andy Pennell's books.

A place to discuss general QL issues.
Derek_Stewart
Font of All Knowledge
Posts: 3900
Joined: Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:40 am
Location: Sunny Runcorn, Cheshire, UK

Re: Andy Pennell's books.

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi Norm,

Thank you for the update.

I can not believe that 2 comercial books were published with all these glaring errors.

There is also some missing code in the Sdate Calculations, where some of the 16 bit multiplication code was missing. Probably my fault not typing the data table.

I will get this corrected and updated.


Regards,

Derek
User avatar
NormanDunbar
Forum Moderator
Posts: 2249
Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2010 9:04 am
Location: Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK
Contact:

Re: Andy Pennell's books.

Post by NormanDunbar »

Hi Derek,

I was responding to previous posts about where A1 points. I was not expecting you to update the book! I can do that when I get home from Brixham, Devon. My wife, Alison and I have been married 25 years so we took a short break to celebrate.

Cheers,
Norm.


Why do they put lightning conductors on churches?
Author of Arduino Software Internals
Author of Arduino Interrupts

No longer on Twitter, find me on https://mastodon.scot/@NormanDunbar.
User avatar
pjw
QL Wafer Drive
Posts: 1280
Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2014 8:44 am
Location: Norway
Contact:

Re: Andy Pennell's books.

Post by pjw »

Hi Norm,
NormanDunbar wrote:My eBook is at https://github.com/NormanDunbar/QLAssem ... tober-2020.

Chapter 7.8 is where you need to be:
<>
As you write yourself in the reference you give, its not documented anywhere:
I have never seen this documented and it has been discovered by me during long debugging
sessions. Now that SMSQ is here, the above information may no longer be valid. The only
thing to remember is that on entry to a procedure or function, A1 does not hold a suitable
value for the top of the maths stack as stated in various documents.
You dont say whether your findings apply to .., JM, JS, Minerva, SMSQ/E etc. It could, in other words
just be random.

Im no authority, but I would advise to not rely on this unless it were documented to be valid across
the board, and to be there for a particular reason, ie as a result of the way things by necessity are
done, or as a particular service to keyword writers. I wont go into reasons as I hope they are self
evident.


Per
dont be happy. worry
- ?
User avatar
pjw
QL Wafer Drive
Posts: 1280
Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2014 8:44 am
Location: Norway
Contact:

Re: Andy Pennell's books.

Post by pjw »

Derek_Stewart wrote:<>
I can not believe that 2 comercial books were published with all these glaring errors.
<>
I can. A few honest mistakes is one thing, but.. Still, some of us have come through, relatively unscathed, so perhaps nuff said.


Per
dont be happy. worry
- ?
User avatar
NormanDunbar
Forum Moderator
Posts: 2249
Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2010 9:04 am
Location: Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK
Contact:

Re: Andy Pennell's books.

Post by NormanDunbar »

pjw wrote: You dont say whether your findings apply to .., JM, JS, Minerva, SMSQ/E etc. It could, in other words
just be random.
At the time, JS.
pjw wrote: Im no authority, but I would advise to not rely on this unless it were documented to be valid across
the board, and to be there for a particular reason, ie as a result of the way things by necessity are
done, or as a particular service to keyword writers. I wont go into reasons as I hope they are self
evident.
True, very true. Maybe I need to do more testing -- it's been a while!

Cheers,
Norm.


Why do they put lightning conductors on churches?
Author of Arduino Software Internals
Author of Arduino Interrupts

No longer on Twitter, find me on https://mastodon.scot/@NormanDunbar.
Derek_Stewart
Font of All Knowledge
Posts: 3900
Joined: Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:40 am
Location: Sunny Runcorn, Cheshire, UK

Re: Andy Pennell's books.

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi

I have added the amendments stated earlier and have loaded a updated PDF file here:
QDOS_Companion_20-05-22.pdf
QDOS Companion Updates - 20/05/22
(1.61 MiB) Downloaded 131 times
I have added an underlined link from page 37 Channels ID to page 167 SuperBasic Channels.

I have updated Git Hub with the main amended PDF and Libre Office ODT file.
https://github.com/SinclairQL/QDOS-Companion

Please let me know here if there are any more errors or additions or raise a Github issue or action.


Regards,

Derek
User avatar
pjw
QL Wafer Drive
Posts: 1280
Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2014 8:44 am
Location: Norway
Contact:

Re: Andy Pennell's books.

Post by pjw »

Well done, Derek!

Its not your fault that this document is still crawling with errors! To take a few glaring examples after looking at the first few pages:
p3:
PC.MCTRL = PC_MCTRL = 18020 (not 18021)
PC.INTR = PC_INTR = 18021 (not 18022)
PC.TPDATA = PC_TDATA

It irritated me so much (I find this happens more frequently as I get older!) that I downloaded the ODT to do some editing myself and save you some trouble (so please hold off further editing for a while!)

Although I have the latest Apache OO it crashes regularly, and on "restoring" the document I find that some of the changes I made have reverted, while others stuck, wasting me a lot of precious time and leaving me confused and even more :evil: !

So then we get to the Systems Variables, p5. Here the book uses absolute addresses rather than offsets, which really is a bloody nuisance and, of course totally wrong, considering that these locations are not guaranteed; only the offsets are. And most if not all official documentation, and any Include Files you'll find, define these mnemonics as offsets and not as absolutes. So heres a dilemma: Should I correct these (I havent investigated what that might do to the rest of the text, and Id hate getting into formatting problems etc), or should I just call it a day and leave this as a lost cause and a historical relic? Or perhaps someone else thinks this is worth salvaging and wants to have a go?


Per
dont be happy. worry
- ?
User avatar
tofro
Font of All Knowledge
Posts: 2679
Joined: Sun Feb 13, 2011 10:53 pm
Location: SW Germany

Re: Andy Pennell's books.

Post by tofro »

pjw wrote: So then we get to the Systems Variables, p5. Here the book uses absolute addresses rather than offsets, which really is a bloody nuisance and, of course totally wrong, considering that these locations are not guaranteed; only the offsets are. And most if not all official documentation, and any Include Files you'll find, define these mnemonics as offsets and not as absolutes. So heres a dilemma: Should I correct these (I havent investigated what that might do to the rest of the text, and Id hate getting into formatting problems etc), or should I just call it a day and leave this as a lost cause and a historical relic? Or perhaps someone else thinks this is worth salvaging and wants to have a go?
I think a caveat at the beginning of the SV description is in order - there's actually more than enough system variables descriptions openly available. Not sure if it's worth fixing in the complete text. Whoever is stubborn enough to stay with only one single book is maybe worthy being condemned to work out the offsets themselves ;)


ʎɐqǝ ɯoɹɟ ǝq oʇ ƃuᴉoƃ ʇou sᴉ pɹɐoqʎǝʞ ʇxǝu ʎɯ 'ɹɐǝp ɥO
User avatar
XorA
Site Admin
Posts: 1357
Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2011 11:31 am
Location: Shotts, North Lanarkshire, Scotland, UK

Re: Andy Pennell's books.

Post by XorA »

Although I have the latest Apache OO it crashes regularly, and on "restoring" the document I find that some of the changes I made have reverted, while others stuck, wasting me a lot of precious time and leaving me confused and even more :evil: !
Not related to the editing, but Apache OO is a dead project, LibreOffice is where actual development of the codebase happens!


User avatar
pjw
QL Wafer Drive
Posts: 1280
Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2014 8:44 am
Location: Norway
Contact:

Re: Andy Pennell's books.

Post by pjw »

tofro wrote:
pjw wrote: So then we get to the Systems Variables, p5. Here the book uses absolute addresses rather than offsets, which really is a bloody nuisance and, of course totally wrong, considering that these locations are not guaranteed; only the offsets are. And most if not all official documentation, and any Include Files you'll find, define these mnemonics as offsets and not as absolutes. So heres a dilemma: Should I correct these (I havent investigated what that might do to the rest of the text, and Id hate getting into formatting problems etc), or should I just call it a day and leave this as a lost cause and a historical relic? Or perhaps someone else thinks this is worth salvaging and wants to have a go?
I think a caveat at the beginning of the SV description is in order - there's actually more than enough system variables descriptions openly available. Not sure if it's worth fixing in the complete text. Whoever is stubborn enough to stay with only one single book is maybe worthy being condemned to work out the offsets themselves ;)
Good idea. I'll do that and then hand it back. I dont think, after all, that I'll do any more work on this book. Its just too much trouble. Those who have used it are presumably done with it, and those who still wish to learn should look around to the ample resources available nowadays.


Per
dont be happy. worry
- ?
Post Reply