TINYTREK.ENT
jfgaffney 08/30/01

summary

This is Dr. Li-Chen Wang's Palo Alto Tiny BASIC ver 2.0 hooked up to
Sol i/o and Dr. Wang's version of basic game Startrek Called TinyTrek.
The basic and game run in 8k of ram (0-1FFF) on Sol-20. Basic is located
(0-0768) and (1F66-1FFF). 

details

The first version of Palo Alto Tiny Basic (patb) appeared in the May
1976 Vol 1, No. 5 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics
& Orthodontia. An errata was in June/July issue.

The Lynn Cochran Startrek program appeared in Interface (Age) June 1976.
MITS 8k Basic and the program would run in an Altair with 12k of ram.

The Dr. Wang TinyTrek program appeared in July issue of PCC
 (Peoples Computer Company newsprint journal).

The ver 2.0 of patb appeared in Interface Age December 1976. Roger
Rauskolb did this version, giving full credit to Dr. Wang. He 
translated the mnemonics to standard Intel 8080 from Dr. Wang's use
of an obscure IBM set and he relocated the program to run at low
memory. He made some fixes and introduced a bad error in the
subtraction routine. errata in May 1977 issue.

I have one of the first Sol computers. I received the main card kit
in December 1976 and the remainder in January 1977. Only the Consol
os was provided at time. I also had ptc 8k static ram card.

I had to devise my own tape write routine, hand assemble and key it
into 1k system ram. After getting usable tape saves with a JCPenny
recorder, Patb, and game, was the first program of substance that
I keyed in and my notes indicate I had program working Feb 7, 1977.

A few days ago I turned on this Sol-20 after about 2 years non-use
I found it fully functional except keyboard keypads. I took it apart
to replace essential pads, but I found all of my spare pads useless
also. I wound up using the bare pc card as a touch keypad to get this
program off a North Star disk.