Skip to content

Site map) Home > Development > Languages > BASIC > EhBASIC

Durango-specific EhBASIC commands

EhBASIC from the late Lee Davidson is intended as a generic, console-type BASIC interpreter for 6502 systems. In order to support Durango·X's graphics, colour and sound capabilities, new commands have been added to the last available version (2.22).

CONIO interface

The standalone EhBASIC interpreter for Durango·X is supplied with a suitable minimal firmware, mostly around the CONIO function as included in the minimOS Operating System. There is similar CONIO support in DurangoLib C library.

CONIO acts as a terminal emulator; for easier parsing, most control codes are single-byte, thus the standard CONIO features are accessible thru a mixture of traditional ASCII, bash shortcut keys and ZX-Spectrum codes. All of them can be issued via standard PRINT CHR$() BASIC sentences, but a few of them have beed granted new BASIC commands for convenience:

CLS

Clears the screen. If an alternative screen is on display, will set that as the current output screen.

Equivalent to PRINT CHR$(12);

LOCATE c,r

Moves the printing position to column c and row r; acceptable values are 0...15 in colour mode, and 0...31 in HIRES.

Equivalent to PRINT CHR$(23);CHR$(32+r);CHR$(32+c);

INK i

Sets foreground ("ink") colour to i; values go thru MOD 16 to become 0...15, as per the standard Durango·X palette. In HIRES mode, colours are internally set but NOT displayed in any way until back into colour mode.

Equivalent to PRINT CHR$(18);CHR$(32+i);

PAPER p

Sets background ("paper") colour to p; same restrictions as above apply.

Equivalent to PRINT CHR$(20);CHR$(32+i);

CURSOR n

Enables (when n is 1) or disables (0) the cursor.

Equivalent to PRINT CHR$(17); (to enable) and PRINT CHR$(19); (to disable)

Note

Any odd value acts as 1, while any even value acts as 0.

Video modes

MODE n

Sets video mode according to the following table:

  • 0: colour mode, standard video
  • 1: colour mode, inverse video
  • 2: HIRES mode, standard video (default mode in EhBASIC)
  • 3: HIRES mode, inverse video

Note

Values 4 and 5, originally intended for greyscale mode, are NOT supported as that mode is deprecated. When available, though, it could be set by POKEing the appropriate value into the $DF80 video mode register. If you want to set greyscale mode anyway, you may use the BASIC command below without the OR 8 clause.

Equivalent to POKE $DF80, (PEEK($DF80) AND %00110000) OR ((n AND 3)<<6) OR 8 (...phew!)

Tip

In case you need to control Emilio's LED when fitted at bit 2 of the video mode register ($DF80), add OR 4 to the expression above to turn it on (the default syntax turns it off)

SCREEN n

Selects one out of four available screens in Durango·X (default=3 at $6000) for display. In order to actually redirect text output to the selected screen, a CLS or equivalent command must be issued.

Warning

  • In order to write on any screen besides the standard 3, Memory size MUST be properly set at boot time, otherwise EhBASIC may crash! Suitable values are:
    • 16384 (or $4000) allows use of screens 2 and 3
    • 8192 (or $2000) allows use of screens 1, 2 and 3
    • 4096 (or $1000) allows use of any screen, including 0. Since zeropage, stack and system variables live in this area, only the bottom half of the screen will be used; CONIO automatically accounts for that.
  • Graphic commands do NOT take into account the CONIO pointers, thus will draw into the screen on display at once. They won't respect the upper half of SCREEN 0, either.

Equivalent to POKE $DF80, (PEEK($DF80) AND %11000000) OR (n<<4) OR 8

BEEP d,p

Plays a note of pitch p (integer value 0...42, chromatic scale from F3 to B6) for a time of d/50 seconds.

In case a similar sentence is found on a ZX-Spectrum programme, it must be rewritten in Durango·X EhBASIC as BEEP d*50,p+7.

Warning

Interrupts are shut off while playing sounds, which may affect timing based on the jiffy counter ($206-$209)

PAUSE n

Waits for n IRQ system interrupts to happen, or until any key is pressed. Current version is limited to 255, thus a little more than a second wait. If n is zero, it waits for any key to be pressed, without any time limit.

In case a similar sentence is found on a ZX-Spectrum programme, it must be rewritten in Durango·X EhBASIC as PAUSE n*5

Graphic commands

These commands are inspired by those on the ZX-Spectrum, but instead of the set foreground colour, they all rely on an extra parameter for colour. There is no "attribute area" in Durango·X, thus any pixel is completely independent of its neighbours.

Unlike the ZX-Spectrum, though, the origin of coordinates is at top left of the screen.

PLOT x,y,c

Draws a pixel of colour c (from the standard Durango·X palette) on screen coordinates x,y; acceptable values are 0...127 in colour mode and 0...255 in HIRES (this mode will also do c MOD 2, thus only odd colour values will display the pixel, otherwise is cleared).

LINE x1,y1,x2,y2,c

Draws a line of colour c from screen coordinates x1,y1 to x2,y2; the usual restrictions apply.

CIRCLE x,y,r,c

Draws a circle of colour c and radius r centered at screen coordinates x,y; besides the usual restrictions, the whole circle must fit inside the screen, otherwise a Function call Error is generated.

RECT x1,y1,x2,y2,c

Bug

This is NOT working on the current version. Intended to draw a filled rectangle, the command will be accepted (and its parameters checked!) but nothing will be drawn on screen.

LOADing and SAVing programs

Note

In its standard form, Durango·X has no mass-storage device. But several options are available, including an SD card reader on the Development Cartridge (plus a similar sidecar SD reader, under development) and, of course, the host filesystem when running under the Perdita emulator thru the Virtual Serial Port. A plug-in system has been developed to include a suitable driver when assembling the EhBASIC binary, thru the option -DAUXIO=path-to-driver.s, but there might be functional differences depending on the chosen device.

LOAD

After issuing this command, if the device is available it will propmt asking for a Filename. If a matching file is found, it will load; otherwise, a Function call Error will be issued. Partial filenames are thus supported. No parameters are used.

If $ is stated as filename, then a Directory listing is displayed (with executable binaries preceded by a *) and will return to the BASIC prompt without any LOAD attempt.

Warning

If LOAD succeeds finding a file, the program previously stored in RAM will be DELETED. If a Directory listing is requested via $ or no matching file is found, the previous program will stay intact in RAM.

Note

LOAD will actually "type" (without echo) the contents of the chosen file, as long as it's a generic file. No other check is done!

SAVE

Syntax and operation is the same as LOAD: use $ for Directory listing or a complete filename for saving, when prompted. No parameters.

Tip

Both LOAD and SAVE use ASCII format for easy interoperation with modern computers. Note that, in case international character support is needed, CONIO is based on (a slightly modified) ISO 8859-1 charset.

Note

Loading or saving in Perdita thru VSP (default) does NOT support $ directory listings, nor partial filenames.