Forum comments in chronological order

Anonymous
Mon 6-Jan-2020 09:25

Some more things I discovered in the specification 0.3:

Important differences between the specification and the reference implementation:
- STORE_BYTE: "ram[arg1]" should be "ram[field_addr(arg2 / 2, deref(arg1))]" (2x)
- GET_KEY: should start with "if(SPC == auto || SPC == pendingspace) output_space()" (similar to GET_INPUT)

Minor things in the specification:
- MAKE_PAIR, AUX_PUSH_VAL, AUX_POP_VAL: "local variable addr <- TOP", "v <- 0xe000 + count", "v <- pop_serialized()", and "v <- empty list" should use "=" instead of "<-"
- PUSH_ENV: arguments are given as "BYTE/0" in the index but "BYTE" in the detailed description
- def unlink: useless "return" at the end

Suggestions:
- output_value() is another function which should probably be explicitly defined in the specification (e.g. the non-obvious $ syntax for references is never mentioned in the specification)
- The definition of the "SPC" register suggests that only the order of the enum values matters, not their actual values. While this is true during execution, save files store all the registers, so using anything but the values 0-5 would make saves non-portable. It might therefore be better to assign fixed numbers to the enum values in the specification.

lft
Linus Åkesson
Tue 7-Jan-2020 17:19

Thank you!

Anonymous
Mon 13-Jan-2020 03:03

Any possibility for a source code?

Anonymous
Mon 13-Jan-2020 23:06

This was very instructive. —Thore

Anonymous
Wed 15-Jan-2020 09:54

"For every four bits of data (also known as a nybble), five bits are written to the disk surface, chosen from a table. Let's refer to them as a quintuple."

Or a Quibble.

Ivoah
Wed 15-Jan-2020 20:19

Are there any plans to create a C implementation? I would love to get Å-machine games running on devices such as the TI Nspire, which already has frotz ported to it.

Anonymous
Mon 20-Jan-2020 15:57

Linus, you're officially my new hero

Anonymous
Tue 21-Jan-2020 05:38

Solid "contribution"! Did you do the corresponding visuals as well? Would love to know more about how you did it.

Anonymous
Tue 21-Jan-2020 05:39

Nvm, just found the page.

Anonymous
Thu 23-Jan-2020 17:35

I heard Bach in Venice Italy in a small church using their church organ. Context really matters and was an awesome auditory and body experience experience from the reverberations.

lft
Linus Åkesson
Fri 24-Jan-2020 08:09

Yes, I certainly intend to do that at some point. A platform-independent engine, calling out to an I/O layer that in turn could be implemented using the Glk library, for instance.

But I have some improvements to the Å-machine in mind, and I would prefer to get those in place first, while there are still only two official interpreters to maintain.

Anonymous
Fri 24-Jan-2020 21:56

Hi, kudos for your blog and for sharing your passion !
any chance you could share that awesome tune in .sid format ?

Anonymous
Fri 24-Jan-2020 22:12

https://www.linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/index.php

Stein
Mon 27-Jan-2020 13:16

Wow! I just came across this. I had the same revelations back when I first got a guitar amplifier and tried running the C64 audio through it with reverb turned to max. I only did about a minute and a half of the Toccata in D minor because I couldn't do justice to the chords with only 3 SID voices. I had to go by ear since I couldn't read sheet music back then and I got some of the faster passages wrong. Although I grew up with Karl Richter's version I came to prefer Peter Hurford later, so my SID interpretation was based on that.

But as usual, you take it to the next level. This is awesome, thank you!

Anonymous
Mon 27-Jan-2020 20:05

Awesome! Like the short movie and your contribution fit perfectly and knowing about it make that movie close with a strong-punch!