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Add usage guide section about disk blocks

This commit is contained in:
Virgil Dupras 2020-05-04 20:37:04 -04:00
parent 986a40d3e2
commit 3c2e0dd9df
3 changed files with 28 additions and 1 deletions

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4 Number literals 6 Compilation vs meta-comp.
8 Interpreter I/O 11 Signed-ness
14 Addressed devices 17 DOES>
18 Disk blocks

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Disk blocks
Disk blocks are Collapse OS' main access to permanent storage.
The system is exceedingly simple: blocks are contiguous
chunks of 1024 bytes each living on some permanent media such
as floppy disks or SD cards. They are mostly used for text,
either informational or source code, which is organized into
16 lines of 64 characters each.
Blocks are referred to by number, 0-indexed. They are read
through BLK@ and written through BLK!. When a block is read,
its 1024 bytes content is copied to an in-memory buffer
starting at BLK( and ending at BLK). Those read/write
operations are often implicit. For example, LIST calls BLK@.
(cont.)

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When a word modifies the buffer, it sets the buffer as dirty
by calling BLK!!. BLK@ checks, before it reads its buffer,
whether the current buffer is dirty and implicitly calls BLK!
when it is.
The index of the block currently in memory is kept in BLK>.
Many blocks contain code. That code can be interpreted through
LOAD. Programs stored in blocks frequently have "loader blocks"
that take care of loading all blocks relevant to the program.