Programming FAQ

Q1: What is eXtensible Assembly Script (XAS)? what is it for?

XAS is both a development shell, and a build script system. Its been custom-designed to work with SBTCVM's development tools, and compilers.

Its interactive mode has a few extra commands for your convienence:

help
ls/dir [directory]
find [string]

You can find more information here: XAS Documentation.

Q2: How can i package my programs? How do I use directories to package my programs like the included applications do?

XAS's documentation has information on this: See: XAS Documentation

Q3: What programming languages does SBTCVM currently ship with?

1. SBTCVM assembly
1.  fully automated address calculations
2.  compile-time variables with variable libraries
3.  statically compiled modules
4.  Most instructions directly represent CPU opcodes.
2. SSTNPL: 
1. goto/label based. (with stack-driven subroutine support)
2. static precompiled module support.
3. advanced static-sized table system (2D arrays)
4. 1 and 2 axis iterators
5. extensive IO support
6. 9-trit character/integer type.

Q4: what are *.tasm & *.stnp files?

These are SBTCVM assembly source code files and SSTNPL source code files respectively. Note: *.stnp files may also be the source of an SSTNPL module.

Q5: what about *.tas0 and *.stnpmfs files?

*.tas0 files are SBTCVM assembly module files, while *.stnpmfs files, in combination with a *.tas0 file, make up a compiled SSTNPL module.

While SBTCVM assembly has a special extention for modules, and compiles them on-the-fly, SSTNPL must precompile them via the --module option.