Compiling the TCS Forth System

June 18, 1999

Jim Harwood

 

 

Whenever just about any editing changes are made, we need to do a recompile. Exceptions to this are those few blocks that are interpreted at boot time. The important ones are 222, 248, and 249. These are initialization blocks and are not part of the compiling.

There are two stages to the recompiling. First, we compile into memory the basic Forth operating system. Then, we compile the IRTF TCS application. At the end of this, we save the compiled code to diskette so it loads on the next boot.

  1. Put the TCS diskettes into the drives and boot them. If at the IRTF, turn on the card edge switch toward the back of the Q-bus that causes a red light on the card to blink. This switch disables the clock interrupt, which if allowed to occur would crash the system as soon as we start compiling because there would be no interrupt handler loaded yet to deal with it. The Dataram LSI-11/23 in Manoa runs with the clock normally turned off with a toggle switch.
  2. Type UTILS BOOT. After about a minute, you get the message IRTF FORTH SYSTEM READY. The terminal issues beeps every so often during this part of the compilation to let you know that things are working.
  3. Type TCS. The TCS application starts compiling, with messaages every so often. It takes about 5 minutes to compile the system.
  4. Type UTILS BSAVE to store the compiled system to the diskettes. After about a minute the operation completes with an -OK. Now, try booting to see that everything worked OK. The recompiled system should come up in about a minute.
  5. If at the IRTF, turn off the compile switch at the back of the Q-bus so the red light stops blinking.

If you try to start up by typing GO and you forgot to turn off the compile switch, the system senses this and tells you to turn it off.