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Switching VIBE out for CLI-based block editor.

A project log for Kestrel Computer Project

The Kestrel project is all about freedom of computing and the freedom of learning using a completely open hardware and software design.

samuel-a-falvo-iiSamuel A. Falvo II 04/14/2016 at 06:530 Comments

I've integrated the block I/O wordset into the normal Forth runtime; in doing so, I've found a number of memory corruptions which I've subsequently fixed. (Took a few days to work it all out though!) In the process, I've integrated BLOCK words so that you don't need to manually initialize the editor or such. I'm sure other bugs exist; however, I've not found anything super-egregious yet.

I've also resolved the stack imbalance caused by processing unsupported keys on the keyboard.

As you know from last update, VIBE performance isn't usable on such a slow CPU; therefore, I've decided to replace VIBE with a simpler CLI-based screen editor interface. This will be less convenient to use in some ways; however, it'll be an improvement to the user experience overall due to greater interactivity. I will restore VIBE to a future ROM image only after I've sped it up. This will allow people to play with the environment in the emulator sooner rather than later, while freeing me up to change my focus over to writing Verilog for the CPU.

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