Fast Assembler

[Stephen J Carden]

22 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

 

None of that addresses the question I asked in any way. And U1MB already has a flash-lock.

Hi Jon. I hope you are having a great day. Everyone that has read this post https://atariage.com/forums/topic/327777-fast-assembler/?do=findComment&comment=5005325 I jumped on Jon hard in an open POST. I made a mistake and I am sorry for that.  I have written many programs for the Atari and I have had that happen many times in the past. This is why I responded the way I did. It was still wrong of me. Jon and I have have been swapping emails and have that resolved.

 

With the U1Meg wanting a hardware lock and a battery backed up ramdisk disk is a request should new board be made. This is not a bug fix in software or hardware with the U1Meg.   I Guess I must really like the U1Meg I have 7 of them. I would not have 7 of them if there was a problem with it.

 

Jon I know from your U-Tube video that the Rapidos has problems. Do you think there will be a fix for it?  I have very high hopes for that.  I would have liked to have added a high speed 816 to my Multiplexer Master. At the moment my multiplexer master uses U1Meg, Side 2, Vbxe, KRH, R-Time 8, and Duel Pokey upgrade. I really need a processor speed boost in the Multiplexer Master. I think I will just try and see if I can get that from  just the RapiDos, RTime 8, and KRH.

 

Jon and everyone else have a great and happy day.

 

 

 

 

[flashjazzcat]

1 minute ago, Stephen J Carden said:

I made a mistake and I am sorry for that.

Thanks Steve. Let's forget about it.

1 minute ago, Stephen J Carden said:

With the U1Meg wanting a hardware lock and a battery backed up ramdisk disk is a request should new board be made.

Politely, for the third time: U1MB has a flash lock already. As for battery-backed RAM: I don't think that's especially useful now that we have easy access to massive hard disk partitions which are generally faster than RAMdisks, but there's always TurboFreezer for those who want such functionality (and I'm sure you have one of those).

3 minutes ago, Stephen J Carden said:

Jon I know from your U-Tube video that the Rapidos has problems. Do you think there will be a fix for it? 

I doubt it, frankly, unless some accidental discovery is made. It's taken a number of years for most of the issues to be acknowledged and documented, and that's before any coordinated attempt is made to resolve them (which would likely require close cooperation between hardware designers, which has absolutely not happened to the best of my knowledge).

 

Have a good day, Steve.

[Stephen J Carden]

On 2/16/2022 at 4:32 AM, flashjazzcat said:

 

None of that addresses the question I asked in any way. And U1MB already has a flash-lock.

I gave you the wrong e-mail out because a typo.     "SJCarden7a  @  Gmail.com   

 

Take care!

Steve

 

[janzh]

Hi,

 

There is a new version of FastAssembler 1.8 02-11-2022.

There are no news for SpartaDOS X user.

The assembler was just ported to BW-DOS 1.4:

https://github.com/HolgerJanz/FastAssembler

https://github.com/HolgerJanz/BW-DOS

OK, it was not just ported. I also build a new version of BW-DOS (version 1.4). I changed it that way the the COMTAB was moved to page 7 and can now be accessed by absolute addressing. This really makes it easier to write assembler programs because you do not need any boiler-plate-code to calc addresses for like CRNAME. Furthermore now error handling and decimal conversion is exposed by BW-DOS and can easily used by programs.

The port was done with a library (I call it SDX Lib for BW-DOS) implementing a subset of the Sparta DOS X library. The library gives no support for relocatable code or extended memory access. You can now write one code that can be compiled as SpartaDOS X or Atari DOS executables (see small example below).

 

Regards

Holger

 

Simple code in HI_MAIN.ICL:
 

* print question
        jsr PRINTF
        dta c'What''s your name?'
        dta b($9B,$00)
* ask for name
        lda namev
        ldx namev+1
        ldy #nam_siz
        jsr GETS
* print Hi
        jsr PRINTF
        dta c'Hi %s !'
        dta b($9b,$00)
        dta v(name)
        rts
namev   dta v(name)

 

Frame program for SpartaDOS X:

* Example for FA SpartaDOS X
* Hi from Atari

PRINTF  smb 'PRINTF'
GETS    smb 'GETS'

nam_siz equ $40

        blk reloc main
        icl 'HI_MAIN.ICL'

name    equ *
        blk empty nam_siz main

        blk update addresses
        blk update symbols

        end

 

Frame program for BW-DOS 1.4:

* Example for FA BW-DOS
* Hi from Atari

nam_siz equ $40

        blk dos $3000
        jsr CHKBW14
        icl 'HI_MAIN.ICL'
* SDX lib for BW-DOS
        icl '<SDXLIB>SDXSTD.ICL'
        icl '<SDXLIB>SDXFAIL.ICL'

name    equ *

        end

 

Edited November 8, 2022 by janzh

[janzh]

BTW - The source of FastAssembler and BW-DOS can be compiled with FastAssembler itself so this combo of BW-DOS 1.4 and FastAssembler 1.8 can bootstrap themself.

 

For best programming experience I recommend XEDIT by FJC together with FastAssembler and BW-DOS (is part of the ATRs on GitHub).

[Faicuai]

Again, f-late to the party-here...

 

Wow !!! 2m:52secs to fully assemble itself with a whole bunch of file-includes, etc. (on my reference 800):

 

 

What a great little piece of work this assembler is !!

 

It ABSOLUTELY trounces my tried-and-tested Atari Macroassembler times (also tested on my Sieve-benc. sample code, too)... And its integration with SDX is such a pleasure to work with, supporting really well code relocation (considering that my sieve bench. code is also SELF-modifying !! 😳👍💪)

 

At first, I thought the longer times on Atari MAC were due to my grotesque line-by-line code-comments, etc., but FastAssmbler churned those files like a walk in the park!! 😍

 

Overall, a MUST have in your Atari HD's library!! Will be converting ALL my snippets of work to this great assembler!

 

THANKS !!!

 

 

Edited June 10, 2023 by Faicuai

[janzh]

Yes, it was a great job by Marek these days. I just try to add some minor improvements, examples, and documentation. I am still working on error handling to provide exact line and file of error. Any ideas and feedback for improvements are welcome.

Regards,

Holger

BTW - at the moment I am working on FastAssembler compatible sources for ATARO XL OS Rev 2.

Edited June 10, 2023 by janzh

[Faicuai]

1 hour ago, janzh said:

BTW - at the moment I am working on FastAssembler compatible sources for ATARO XL OS Rev 2.

 

That would be wonderful, but I would STRONGLY suggest you to drop all work on Rev.2 and only focus on Rev3 (XL/XE) or Rev4 (XEGS). There are improvements and refinements on those loads worth preserving.

 

In other words, Jan, 1985 or better.

 

Cheers!

Edited June 10, 2023 by Faicuai