ASM on a real Atari

[Lord Thag]

Well, after years of accumulating books on Assembly Language in my 8-bit collection, I've decided to start learning/remembering how to code 6502 ML on a real Atari. I forgot how elegantly simple it was to actually write code on the old 8-bits. No distractions, just you and a nice clear screen and your imagination. Fun stuff.

 

So, a couple of questions for all you ML gurus around here:

 

What's the best assembler to use? I'm currently using the disk version of Mac/65. I know there is a cart, but can you still get one? If so, where might I pick one up? A manual would be great as well, as I'm using one of the net.

 

Also, what are some other tools I might like/need? I have a USB SIO2PC cable with APE, so storage isn't a problem. Any suggestions as to some utilities I might use for game programming? Mainly stuff that works on the actual Atari. Sure, I could use a 6502 cross compiler on my laptop, but the keyboard sucks, and where is the fun in that?

 

Anyone else around here still code on their Ataris?

[Rybags]

Mac-65 cart probably best for the real machine.

 

But with APE you could be more efficient doing stuff with a PC-based assembler.

 

Then you just load up the program each time it's assembled and run. Even the Atari AsmEdit cartridge is fine for just debugging stuff.

[1050]

On the real Atari, hands down, it has to be a Mac65 cart for me, it is anyway. They are available from the 8 bit vendors sometimes or even as foreign bootleg or AtariMax files. I had a manual until it fell apart, I'm thinking it would fall apart on you too, as it was not very well built at all. So I printed my own from a couple text files that are also floating around the web.

 

There are plenty of 6502 coders using their PCs with TASM and testing on emulators lickety split that simply can NOT be matched for code output in any given time period. I am very jealous. I really wish that TASM and MAC65 source were more useable by each other without the manual tweaking I find is required and so teadious. So I am stuck coding on the Atari, gosh how will I ever survive the enjoyment I've always had doing so from day one?

[cas]

On the real Atari, hands down, it has to be a Mac65 cart for me, it is anyway. They are available from the 8 bit vendors sometimes or even as foreign bootleg or AtariMax files. I had a manual until it fell apart, I'm thinking it would fall apart on you too, as it was not very well built at all. So I printed my own from a couple text files that are also floating around the web.

 

There are plenty of 6502 coders using their PCs with TASM and testing on emulators lickety split that simply can NOT be matched for code output in any given time period. I am very jealous. I really wish that TASM and MAC65 source were more useable by each other without the manual tweaking I find is required and so teadious. So I am stuck coding on the Atari, gosh how will I ever survive the enjoyment I've always had doing so from day one?

 

Instead of TASM there is the option to use ATasm on the PC, which is Mac65 compatible. -> http://atari.miribilist.com/atasm/

 

On the Atari, I like BiboAssembler more then Mac65. It lacks Macros, but has a build in Monitor or can use the BiboMon and has a faster user interface (commandline) for my liking (but that is probably a matter of taste). And it allows two sourcefiles open at a time (I'm not sure about Mac65)

 

Bibo Assembler is theoretically Open Source, freed by ABBUC (they bought the license and made it Open Source).

 

However, the Source Code is lost, so it needs to be reverse engineered. Martin Metz started with that project a few years ago, and it is more than 50% finished, but no progress since then. We also have the german handbook as a LaTex file (-> http://www.strotmann.de/~cas/Infothek/BiBo...er/biboass.pdf), that needs translation into English and other languages.

 

There is a file-version of Bibo-Assembler and a Cart-Version.

 

Carsten

[mellis]

Well, after years of accumulating books on Assembly Language in my 8-bit collection, I've decided to start learning/remembering how to code 6502 ML on a real Atari. I forgot how elegantly simple it was to actually write code on the old 8-bits. No distractions, just you and a nice clear screen and your imagination. Fun stuff.

 

So, a couple of questions for all you ML gurus around here:

 

What's the best assembler to use? I'm currently using the disk version of Mac/65. I know there is a cart, but can you still get one? If so, where might I pick one up? A manual would be great as well, as I'm using one of the net.

 

Also, what are some other tools I might like/need? I have a USB SIO2PC cable with APE, so storage isn't a problem. Any suggestions as to some utilities I might use for game programming? Mainly stuff that works on the actual Atari. Sure, I could use a 6502 cross compiler on my laptop, but the keyboard sucks, and where is the fun in that?

 

Anyone else around here still code on their Ataris?

 

You should seriously consider the excellent tools from the cc65 toolset (http://www.cc65.org).

 

Personally, I do not write in C for 8-bit computers (too much overhead), but the package includes an excellent macro assembler called ca65. The tools can be built for Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows, and you can test your program in an emulator or use something like SIO2PC to test on the real hardware. What's more, you can use a proper text editor for writing your assembly code, so you won't have to mess around with line numbers in MAC/65.

 

I have Xcode configured to compile MAKEFILE-based projects that use ca65 as the assembler and ld65 as the linker -- it works great! Compiles are instantaneous and having a proper linker makes it much easier to move things around in memory on the Atari.

 

Hope this helps.

[Shamus]

Off the top of my head the choices on a real Atari are:

• Editor/Assembler (a joke of an assembler with a horrible debugger)
  
• AMAC
  
• EASMD
  
• Synassembler
  
• Mac/65
  

On a real Atari Mac/65 is the hands down winner (I had the E/A cart, AMAC & Mac/65 on disk and cart). The one I had even had DDT built in so major bonus points there! Even the disk based version beats just about any other. What I used to do is write my source files using the Action! editor (THE BEST on a real Atari) and use Mac/65's ENTER command to have it append (prepend?) line numbers to the source before saving it out. I could even do edits in Mac/65 and PRINT the source back out to disk if I wanted to do heavy editing in the Action! editor. Good times.

Edited February 29, 2008 by Shamus

[JohnJr]

Poke 82,0

 

[+Stephen]

Poke 82,0

 

 

LDA #0

STA 52

 

 

Stephen Anderson

[lizard]

in my opinion quick assembler with the bug hunter are the best choice for real hardware, otherwise mads or xasm for pc [my recommendation]

 

quick assembler is very simple to use if you're familiar with old borland products!

[Tickled_Pink]

I always used MAC/65 or PL65 with its inline assembler capabilities - it let me get into ASM slowly without having to write an entire program in assembler.

 

Maybe that's another route ... are there any other high level languages for the Atari with inline assembler facilities?