[Blindapple] running Textalker conditionally

[Kyle]

OK, here's a geeky question for anyone who has done any Apple//e
programming. I want to run Textalker if and only if an Echo is present
in the computer. I know this can be done, because the Talking Writer
disk will only work if an Echo is present, and I can of course study
this code. But here's the real kicker. If an Echo is indeed present, I
want to run Textalker if and only if it isn't already running. Is there
a peek value I can get that will definitely tell the program that
Textalker is/is not running, no matter Textalker's version? I guess I
could scan the entirety of RAM looking for the string "textalker," but
this would seem to be overkill. Also, I am aware that textalker.blind
stores its code in a different area in memory, so there may be multiple
peek values to retrieve. This is fine just as long as I don't have to
read everything.

Yeah, I was quite the geek on these things lol. I didn't just play the
games, the Apple //e was the first computer I used for programming, and
if a game didn't do what I wanted it to do, and if it was written in
Applesoft BASIC, I "fixed" the game so that it would do what I wanted it
to do. Strangely though, I am only now beginning to understand a bit
about how the whole memory addressing thing works as I mess around with
analysing a bit about how DOS works. As a side note, the DOS Boss book
is available online, and is a great little resource for all this stuff,
not to mention that the entirety of the DOS Boss utility is written in
Applesoft BASIC. Beagle Bros really did a great job with source code and
documentation. Too bad it can't teach me how to find out if Textalker is
running. They do make all this stuff a ton easier to find out in Linux
<smiles>.
~Kyle
http://kyle.tk/
-- 
"Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle?"
Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - "The Amazing Evie"