history.txt

basic.c */ /**//* Project:NeuroBasic, basic package*//**/ /* Survey:This is a simple Basic b-code

History of the basic package of NeuroBasic
==========================================

Friday 11/14/97
- New neuro object ARRAY implemented to store temporary results during
  a training session and therefore to avoid thousands of system calls by
  using th fprint() function. See files array.c and array.h. (bf)

Tuesday 11/26/96
- in nbasic.sty: switch for printing in letter format implemented. The
  user can choose the format in macros.mk (afour or letter). (bf)

Friday 11/15/96
- Bug in basic.c, call_b_interpreter() replaced by the two functions
  call_b_interpreter and do_call_b_interpreter() due to problems with
  using NeuroBasic under MS-DOS. Fixed by Urs. (bf)

Thursday 08/10/95
- Bug in basic.c, do_print() fixed: in cases of C_OPENFILE and
  C_PRINTS the index prn_pos was not incremented. Discovered by
  Michael, fixed by Urs. (um)

Friday 07/28/95
- New Basic Compiler (V3.0) installed. (um)

Sunday 05/21/95
- Description of function "rseq()" put back into basic.tex. It was, somehow,
  disappeared from the manual. (um)

Monday 04/24/95 
- "make html" implemented. This produces an www-page for the docu of
  NeuroBasic. Several .tex-files were adapted or added.

Wednesday 02/21/95
- Use of MUSIC disk array implemented. A couple of extentions were
  necessary in the following files: b_run.c, basic.c, basic.h, 
  common.h, neurolib.c, neurolib.h, mdisk.h, simpsim.c. (mk)

Tuesday 12/06/94
- extended copyright does not automatically appear anymore in MS-DOS
  versions. (um)

Thursday 12/4/94
- mknfcts.c bug fixed for passing a string from the host to the
  MUSIC. Used as parameter for neuro-functions. (mk)

Monday 12/05/94
- removed "static" in function turn_byte_order() in basic.c, introduced
  corresponding prototype in basic.h (for CNNs). (um)

Thursday 10/20/94
- NB displayes error messages when unititialized string variables are
  used. (mk)
- Like normal variables all string variables are cleared before
  executing a programm with the command "run". 
- Bug in eval_string_vars() fixed.  

Wednesday 10/19/94
- in b_run.c: variable b_program renamed to b_prog in order to not
  interfere with the variable "b_program" used by eval.c and basic.c.
  (um)
- in eval.c: get_bonst() changed to return TRUE or FALSE instead of
  the direct value of the symbolic constant to omit the use of
  FLT_MIN as a flag. (um)

Monday 10/17/94
- bug in tbuf_sync() in neurolib.c fixed. Twice tested for
  tbuf 0 instead of 0 and 1. (um)
- tbuf_sync() rearranged: if data to be synchronized is not found in
  any of the two transfer-buffers then make an unconditional
  Wait_data(). (um)

Friday 10/14/94
- error in eval.c: if/then + direct line number was not evaluated
  correct from new expression evaluator. (um)

Monday 10/10/94
- video board was not initialized (for CNNs) in host.c (um)
- default hsim.o is produced correctly now (by global makefile) (um)
- changed all makefiles back to Unix make ($ -> $$) (um)

Monday 10/03/94
- new expression evaluator, basic.c -> basic.c eval.c (um)

Friday 09/30/94
- Bug fixed in get_line()

Tuesday 09/27/94
- chr$ changed to str$ (mk)
- function realloc_nobj(nobj, tbsize) implemented

Tuesday 09/13/94
- zero neuro-objects after allocation in function alloc_nobj()
  in neurolib.c (um)

Wednesday 09/07/94
- clear all neuro-objects at start of program (not only the first
  one). (um)

Friday 08/26/94
- symbolic constants allowed. (um)

Thuesday 08/25/94
- Multiple commands on one program line allowed.
  This makes nested if-then-loops possible. (mk)

Monday 08/22/94
- function exist() improved: works with expressions and array
  elements. (um)

Friday 08/19/94
- function exist() written. (um)

Monday 08/15/94
- bug in simpsim.c (Init_comm()) fixed. Communication from host
  was not handled correctly. (um)

Thursday 08/11/94
- bug fixed: labels where compiled to variables. (um)
- bug fixed: variable names were cleared in clr_prg(). (um)
- bug fixed: last name of a program with no carriage was not
  loaded. (um)

Thuesday 08/09/94 
- label implemented. Basic files without line numbers can be loaded
  (load commmand adapted). save saves Basic program without saven with
  lines. (mk)
- Error is reoported if a variable is used befor a value is assigned
  to it. (um)
- Variables are cleared when typing "run" or "clear". (um)
- Number of Basic variables set to 5000 (before 10000). This should
  be enough and saves stack space. (um)

Monday 08/08/94
- fprint "filename",... syntax changed. The filename can be a string,
  string variable or string expression. (mk)

Friday 08/05/94
- renamed globobjs.h -> allnobjs.h, basicif.h -> allnfcts.h,
  .global -> .public (um)
- makefile changed: doesn't print out warning options on screen
  anymore. (um)

Wednesday 08/3/94
- String variable implemented. Built-in string operations:
  string concatenation, conversion float -> string. (mk)

Sunday 07/31/94
- Bug in b_run.c fixed. String for built-in function system() was
  not passed correctly. (um)
- Basic floating-point print function: not only numbers > 10000
  but also < than 0.001 will be printed in exponential format.
- New dmalloc() routines are used. The module dmalloc.c does not
  exist anymore.

Friday 07/29/94
- Stack size for host task (when MUSIC is alive) doubled to
  10816 byte.
- bug arount "fprint" fixed. (um)

Wednesday 07/27/94
- New NeuroBasic development environment organization
  (with packages)

Monday 07/18/94
- Byte-order-problem for magic number of ASCII-Matrix headers
  fixed. NeuroBasic and sncat now run correctly on PCs. (um)
- Bug in do_load() fixed. Downloading of compressed patterns to
  Music in several blocks did not work. (um)

Friday 07/15/94
- white space extended with carriage return, form feed and vertical
  tab. (um)

Thursday 07/14/94
- seconds() renamed to clock(). It is now a built-in function, no
  longer a neuro-function.

Wednesday 07/13/94
- bug in load_function_table() (basic.c) fixed. It had no
  consequences so far. (um)

Monday 06/27/94
- list: lists also line 0.
- get_line: checks, if program line < CMD_MAX.
- clean_cmd: checks, if command is shorter than CMD_MAX.
- eval_print, push_pars: check, if available string space is full.

Friday 06/24/94
- nget() and nput() functions. (um)
- fprint (file print) implemented (mk)

Tuesday 06/19/94
- New load() and save() concept finished. The old load/save
  functions are removed. (um)

Sunday 06/19/94
- Minor changes in various modules to eliminate warnings from
  the Atari Turbo-C compiler. (um)

Friday 06/17/94
- unnecessary code for B_PRINTxx in function b_server() (basic.c)
  removed (um)
- new load() function runs for fully connected nets for all
  three file formats and the two memory formats. (um)

Friday 06/10/94
- function new_patterns(). (um)
- function load() written. Loads SN-matrices as pattern files. (um)

Monday 05/30/94
- ssdnp is linked static (no problems with dynamic libraries on
  Sparcstations with older library versions)

Wednesday 11/05/94
- new introduction screen for PC version (including address of scs
  etc.) (um)
- in pa2pat.c: EXIT_FAILURE and EXIT_SUCCESS defined if not done
  by stdlib.h (for MSDOS version). (um)
- pattern file format (.pa) and the utility pa2pat documented in
  manual. (um)

Tuesday 04/12/94
- in single-line command, if error in fnction or array: don't
  print "... on line 0". (um)

Thursday 04/07/94
- Check error code before printing error message (no crashes
  anymore on unknown errors) (um)
- bug in get_b_fctptr() fixed: function names were only
  compared to the length of the wanted function name. (um)
- built-in Basic functions implemented (um)

Thursday 03/24/94
- return variable is no more "returnfn" but the function name
  itself (um)
- Character "!" can be used for comments at the end of a program
  line (um)

Wednesday 03/23/94
- Functions are allowed in the Basic syntax. (um/mk)

Thuresday 03/17/94
- if/then can directly execute a command (um/mk)

Wednesday 03/16/94
- Basic print commands only send message to host after a "new line"
  command (enormous speedup in text output) (um)

Wednesday 02/23/94
- bug in basic.c about array handling fixed (occurred only on
  PCs). (um)

Tuesday 02/22/94
- in pa2pat.c: rewind() replaced by fclose() and fopen().
  rewind() doesn't seem to work on gcc for PCs. (um)

Monday 02/21/94
- Turn byte order should be detected automatically now. (um)
- EXIT_SUCESS and EXIT_FAILURE will be defined if not by
  the system. (um)
- random() changed to randomnumber(). The former name caused some
  problems with duplicate names under some ANSI C environments.
  The name seen from Basic stays the same (random()). (um)

Friday 01/07/94
- Arrays in Basic implemented. (mk)
- Error message for array index out of range displays variable
  name and line number as well. (um)

Friday 11/19/93
- new function random() returns random values which can be assigned
  to Basic varaibles. (um)

Friday 11/12/93
- necessary changes made for new communication version of Music
  (window offsets of empty windows must be set to the dimension
  rather than to zero). (um)

Tuesday 11/08/93
- new function: num_proc() returns the number of processing elements
  in the current Music system. (um)

Monday 11/08/93
- Function seconds(): the clock_t is signed long in gcc what caused
  negative numbers at an overflow. (um)

Thursday 11/04/93
- Bug in basic.c fixed: the Basic print command caused an error
  (log of a negative number) when printing negative numbers. (um)

Monday 11/01/93
- If a function returns a value less than zero: Basic prints out
  the function name, the program line where the function was called
  and a string describing the error. Furthermore the Basic program
  execution is terminated.

Wednestday 10/27/93
- bugs in nalloc.c fixed: free_pbconvolk() and free_pbfmap() did
  free memory space but not release neuro-object from object table.
  (um)
- in sqdtanh(): 1/alpha computed only once outside the loop. Gained
  speedup is more than 6 for this function! (um)

Thursday 10/21/93
- Patterns can be stored in producer, consumer and static RAM
  (in this order of preference)
- fcprop() and fcbp() made compatible with pbfmap type. (um)
- sqtanh() and sqdtanh() made compatible with pbfmap type. (um)
- max. command length increased from 256 to 512. (um)

Wednesday 10/20/93
- There seems to be a bug in the Sun malloc() routines.
  new_pbconvolk(1, 1, 5, 0,0, 1,1) crashes if called at the beginning
  of a Basic program. It's the second malloc(2048) call in a row
  that causes the crash. It does crash with both compilers: gcc
  and acc. However, it does not crash on Music and on Musim. It
  does also not crash if some large memory has been allocated
  before (e.g. a layer). So in "normal" circumstances this bug
  will not hurt. (um)
- New function: new_snm(). Undocumented. See nalloc.c for description.
  (um)

Friday 10/14/93
- new function: random_seed(). (um)

Thrusday 09/30/93
- ctrl-c while a Basic program is running will stop the basic
  program at the next screen output. The Basic itself is only
  killed after a second ctrl-c.
- A jump to a nonexistent programline (from a "goto", "gosub" or
  "if then" causes an error at compiletime rather than runtime.

Friday 09/24/93
- Variable names can now contain parts of keywords. This asked for
  the giveup of the space removal in the program lines because other-
  wise the syntax would be ambiguous. The compiler got nicer with
  this anyway. (um)

Thursday 09/23/93
- Basic commands like (for, next, end, etc.) are case insensitive
  and checked for their full length (instead of only the first
  letter. (um)
- Expressions by themselves are allowed (no more x = ...). (um)
- Variablenames may have any length. They are still case sensitive.
  (um)

Friday 08/27/93
- Functions load_split() and split() added. (um)

Tuesday 08/17/93
- if INIT_MUSIC() or BOOT_DSPs() fail, the program is immediately
  terminated with abort(). (um)
- Funktion seconds() included. It allows time measurements. (um)

Wednesday 08/11/93
- Source code adapted so that most of the new warnings from gcc
  disappear. Not all, that would be too much of work for now. (um)

Friday 03/12/93
- bug in basic.c fixed: number of parameters for a neuro function
  call has not correctly been checked. (um)

Saturday 02/27/93
- Compiler macro EXTENDED_CHECKS renamed to NO_TIMECRITICAL_CHECKS (um)
- LEAN_MODE introduced (um)
- LEAN_MODE and NO_TIMECRITICAL_CHECKS act as flags, no longer as
  defined or undefined (um)

Thursday, 02/25/93
- finished with reading complete function table at once (um)

Wednesday, 02/24/93
- bug in Wait_data() fixed (um)

Monday, 02/22/93
- new transferbuffer concept (see 02/19/93) for convol.c (um)
- moved macro EXTENDED_CHECKS from "makefile" to "partypes.h" (um)

Sunday, 02/21/93
- WAIT_MUSIM macro introduced (necessary to bypass bug in musim) (um)
- EXTENDED_CHECKS for fcprop(), fdbackprop(), sqtanh(), sqdtanh(),
  net_error(), copy_pattern() (um)
- transfer buffer pointers in array (um)
- allocate fully connected weights in SRAM, if possible (um)

Friday, 02/19/93
- history file created (um)
- new transferbuffer concept with semaphore and destination pointers
  introduced (um)