Remote Technologies RPC-320 manual Editing programs and program ming hints

SETUP AND OPERATION

sending it char acters. The uploa d and dow nload file does not conta in any special c odes; th ey are sim ply ASCII cha racters.

Uploading programs is simply a process of receiving an ASCII file. Y ou or your progr am simply need to send "LIST " to receive the entire program . The default baud rate (960 0) is rather high. The RP C-320' s baud ra te is changed using the CONF IG BAUD command.

Downloading a program requires transmitting an ASCII file. As you type in (or download) a line, RP BASIC-52 tokenizes, or com piles, that line. The tim e to do this depends upon its complexity and how many lines of code have been entered.

RPBASIC-52 m ust finish compiling a line before starting the next one. When a line is compiled, a "> " character is sent. This should be your terminal progra ms pacing character for dow nloading.

If your communications program cannot look for a pacing prompt, set it to delay transmission after each line is sent. A 100 ms delay is usually adequate, but your program may be long and complex and require more time. A r esult of a short transmission time is missing or incomplete pro gram lines.

Editing programs and program ming hints

Files uploaded or downloaded are simply ASCII DOS text files. No special characters or control codes are used. You m ay create and edit programs using your favorite word processor or editor. Just be sure to save files in DO S text form at.

A technique used to further program documentation and reduce code space is the use of comments in a downloaded file. For example, you could have the following in a file written on your editor:

REM Check position

REM Read output from the pot and

REM calculate the position

2200 a = ain(0) :REM Get position

The first 3 comments downloaded to the RPC -320 are ignored. Similarly, the empty lines between comm ents are a lso ignored . L ine 2200, with its comment, is a part of the program and could be listed. The m ajor pena lty by wr iting a progr am this w ay is

SECTION 2

increased download time.

Notice that you can w rite a progr am in lower case characters. RPBASIC-52 translates them to upper case.

Some program mers put "N EW" as the first line in the file . During debugging, it is common to insert "temporary" lines . This ensures that these lines are gone. Down loading time is increase d when the old progr am is still pre sent. If you like to wr ite progr ams in separate modules, you can dow nload them separately. Modules are assigned blocks of line numbers. Star t up code might be from 1 to 999. Interrupt handling (keypad, serial ports) might be from lines 1000 to 1499. Display output might be from 1500 to 2500. The programmer must determine the number of lines required for each section.

RPBASIC-52 autom atically formats a line for minimum code space. F or example, you could download the following line of code:

10 fora= 0to5

When you listed this line, it would appear as:

10 FOR A=0 TO 5

Spaces are displayed but not stored. The following line:

10 for a = 0 to 5

would be compressed and displayed as in the second example above. Spaces are removed. H owever, spaces as part of a remark or PRINT are not removed.

Instead of uploading and downloading programs, you can save them to the on card EPRO M. This is useful if you are using a terminal to write program s. Simply type SAVE . To retrieve a program, type LOAD .

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