The Best Assembly Computer - Assembly Interface

[RSS Bot]

The interface for a good assembler is just like a text editor, with extra features added to make assembly easier.

Take a look at this simulated screenshot, inspired by the Apple ] [. In system RAM, this could be handled with one table telling which ASCII character to show (one byte per character), and another table to tell the background/foreground colors for each cell (in each byte, there are 4 bits for background color and 4 bits for background color).

By default, the line under labels is enabled, tab width is 8 characters, lines after labels and code automatically indent, and code is not folded. When a mouse is used, the character that the mouse is pointing to is shown in a different color (for example, in the above screen, it would be shown as a white cell with a blue character).

Characters would be stored as ASCII. The blue underline is toggled on/off with a control byte, and so is the tab width.


You could use any programming language you want, be it 6502, 68K, Z80, BASIC, etc. Regarding the keyboard, there could be additional keys based on what programming language you use. In addition to a regular ASCII keyboard, there could be attachments you could just plug in. For example, a 6502 keyboard attachment might have buttons labeled "LDA," "STA," "CLC," "SEC," "ADC," "SBC," etc.

Next, I'll mention some enhancements you could make to the screen.

http://atariage.com/forums/blog/706/entry-14330-assembly-interface/