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Commands

The manual pages that ship on the P8X disk in /man, one page each: the same text man NAME prints on the machine. They cover the shell built-ins and the /bin programs, and the shared libraries a C or assembler command splices in with //#use (;#use in assembler). About the manual pages.

Commands and programs

Command What it does
asm the on-target two-pass assembler
awk pattern-directed field processing (a small subset)
basic the P8X BASIC interpreter
bootload install an OS image into the boot sectors
camera place the camera and redraw the scene
cat concatenate and print files
cc native C compiler (runs on the P8X)
cd change the working directory
clsave save a recorded GL command list to a file
cmp compare two files byte for byte
cp copy files and directory trees
cube spinning wireframe 3D cube (the stage-7 graphics demo)
del delete a file
dep deposit bytes into memory
desk windows, menus, a file browser and a picture viewer
diff compare two files line by line
dir list directory contents
disasm disassemble a memory range
dump display memory as hex
edit a line-oriented text editor
examine interactively examine and modify memory
exit return to the ROM monitor
find search for files by name under the CWD
finder the full-screen desktop / file browser (graphics mode)
format make a fresh filesystem
fsck check filesystem integrity
gl the graphics language: the machine's hardware 3D/2D engine
grep print lines matching a regular expression
head print the first lines of a file
help list the OS commands
history command-line recall in the shell line editor
house the PG-640A manual's house, animated
image draw a P8I picture, or grab the screen into one
kermit transfer a file over the second serial port
load read a file into memory at its load address
make build targets from a Makefile in the current directory
man display a manual page
md render a Markdown file on the console
mkdir create a directory
mon return to the ROM monitor
more page through text a screenful at a time
mount mount the drive-1 card
mv move or rename files
pack reclaim deleted space
page rejoin or flip the framebuffer pages
paint mouse-driven vector paint on the graphics card
path show or set the program search path
pwd print the working directory
rmdir remove an empty directory
rotate set the scene's rotation and redraw
run load and run a program
save write a range of memory to a file
screen the on-screen text console (glass TTY): off, on, or report
sed stream editor (substitution)
sh run shell commands from a script file
sheet a basic spreadsheet on the graphics card
sort sort lines of text
tail print the last lines of a file
term an on-screen console in the desktop app frame (graphics mode)
touch create empty files
tree print the directory tree
tri draw one 3D triangle from the shell
umount unmount the drive-1 card
uniq collapse adjacent duplicate lines
vi a minimal screen editor
wc count lines, words, and bytes
wdesk the desktop on the resident window-manager kernel
write a full-screen text editor for the GL display (graphics mode)

Libraries (//#use)

Library What it provides
abi named BIOS jump-table and OS syscall addresses (//#use abi, ;#use abi)
apath build an absolute path from a command-line word (//#use apath)
dirent read the current directory entry via syscalls (//#use dirent)
distab disassembler opcode table (//#use distab, ;#use distab)
err write an error message to the console, never to stdout
g3cam the look-at 3D camera + 32-bit isqrt (//#use g3cam)
g3d the C wireframe-3D library (//#use g3d)
gfx the C graphics library (//#use gfx)
glob filename glob matcher (//#use glob, ;#use glob)
globx expand a filename glob into a list of paths
mem BIOS/FS scratch, graphics-flag and TPA-base addresses
ps2 decode the PS/2 keyboard + mouse window (//#use ps2)
ptr console keyboard + pointer/mouse events (//#use ptr)
rdline read one input line into a buffer (//#use rdline)
regex basic-regex matcher for grep and sed (//#use regex, ;#use regex)
stdin file(s)-or-stdin input helper for /BIN commands
streq NUL-terminated string equality for /BIN commands (//#use streq)
wm window-manager core: windows, z-order, focus, menu (//#use wm)