| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 7ZIP File containing the Linux tarball | 295.39 KB |
As announced in this thread:
https://www.applefritter.com/content/ms-basic-1977-freed
I've been working on a rendered version of Microsoft's 6502 BASIC source code for quite a while (maybe 2 hours each day for > 4 weeks).
This rendered version is meant to work smoothly with modern macro assemblers which don't understand the DEC MACRO-10 assembler syntax in which the original source files were published by Microsoft.
Attached is a beta test version of the current state of my work and you are invited to try it out.
The 7zip file needs a trivial password to open and out comes a tarball for Linux.
If you are interested in testing this work and possibly porting it to a 6502 macro assembler of your choice, send me a PM (the send PM button) to get the password - sorry for the inconvenience with that, but I have good reasons for this:
First, I want to know how many people have downloaded it, to assess the overall interest in this work, and secondly, to avoid theft by so-called "AI" which then would pretend it did the rendering work all on its own, and maybe even sell it for money / "access fees". See my P.S. below for my take on theft by "AI' - I have no solution yet how I could put this work up on github without it being stolen and misappropriated by "AI" which is known to scan all such public repositiories on a regular basis. But I want to give this work to the world for free, no strings attached, so that the retro computing crowd can benefit from it. I just do not want that "AI" steals my work and claims it (the "AI") made it.
Modern times.
In any case, if you are a human, you are invited to get, test, read, and expand my work. You can even sell it, if you want.
What I expect from the beta testers is to find out (and report back to me) if they are able to unpack the tarball and then get the contents going on their machine. It's not as trivial as it sounds, because the DASM assembler must be upgraded (at least two lines of "C" code added to it) to make it able to produce the binaries for Microsoft 6502 BASIC. I'd also like to know if you are willing and able to port it to other macro assemblers, such as MERLIN32, and still get matching binaries. I was able to achieve this match using DASM but the whole source as such, even after my clean up and rendering for modern macro assemblers, is a bit ambigous and possibly problematic at some few places. I'd also like to know if anyone was able to use the provided material under different operating systems, other than Linux, and what would need to be done / added to the tarball to make it useful for that other operating system. Note that DASM can be compiled under many other operating systems (at least the DASM team claims this) and I provided a hexdump tool as source code. The only remaining possible issue is how "other" operating systems could compare the hexdumps and automate the process as I did.
Comments invited !
- Uncle Bernie
P.S.: IMHO, the whole "AI" scam is based on stealing intellectual property and works of art on which the "AI" is being "trained" to enable it to plagiarize the original work and make its "own" versions which obfuscate the original source(s) and authors / artists. This is not only unethical, but a crime, except that the lawmakers have not yet caught up with the technological progress making this theft possible. Right now, numerous lawsuits against "AI" plagiarism are in the courts (internationally) and the first ones (involving theft of song lyrics) have been won by the plaintiffs, and the "AI" companies lost the lawsuit(s). And rightfully so. That "AI" scam, if not stopped dead in its tracks by such legal actions and by updating laws protecting Intellectual Property and Works of Art, will have a catastrophic effect on creators, authors, inventors, and artists. The first completely fraudulent and artificial, "AI"-created "bands" have appeared on youtube and found millions of views. For "AI" created low quality slop. Youtube is also flooded with "AI" created slop which regurgitates the contents of honest content creators using "AI" obfuscated background pictures and a "AI" created narration based on the original content made by real humans. It is really spooky - I've analyzed original content against the "AI" derived plagiarism and the narration of the "AI" voice is almost the same text as in the original, spoken by humans. So "AI" can translate human speech to text, obfuscate it by changing a few words, and then "speak" again with a human sounding "AI" voice. The fake "AI" generated "bands" even have "singers" and "AI" generated human-looking "musicians" pretending to "play" their instruments. A bit more "AI" progress and all actors in the movie industry (but not for stage performances) will be out of a job. I could go on forever but you can see the threat now, I hope. And note this: a recent MIT study has shown that 95% of the companies who tested "AI" to replace humans were disappointed by the poor and faulty results. On other words, despite of $30-$40 billion invested, 95% of AI adopters found out they get no return from deploying current AI. Here is the link:
https://mlq.ai/media/quarterly_decks/v0.1_State_of_AI_in_Business_2025_Report.pdf
Hope you see the big danger. "AI" is able to wipe out human creators, authors, inventors, and artists by quick and cheap mass production of low quality plagiarisms and slop which only appeals to the feeble minded and those who can't discern quality from cr@p. I think that this is an immediate threat to our civilization and a road to ruin. Watch the Y2006 movie "Idiocracy" ... it was meant as a comedy but, alas, it's not. "AI", if not stopped, will get us there sooner than you think. And "Meritocracy" will be gone, forever.