Apple IIe cross-assembler IDE

6 posts / 0 new
Last post
Offline
Last seen: 5 years 7 months ago
Joined: Aug 2 2018 - 13:15
Posts: 3
Apple IIe cross-assembler IDE

Hello to all!

I'm using the AppleWin emulator with Merlin Pro assembler v.2.43 (disk image) and I'm very excited with learning 6502 assembly language with the help of Assembly Lines: The complete book by Roger Wagner.

But I would like to use an assembler that makes the whole procedure (writing programs and assembling) a lot easier and faster.

For that reason I would like to know IF there is any decent:

a) cross-assembler
b) with IDE (editor/assembler/disassembler/debugger etc.) (not command-line) (I'm using Windows 10)
c) for the 65c02 CPU
d) that uses syntax similar to the Merlin Pro assembler

Thanks in advance! Smile

mmphosis's picture
Offline
Last seen: 6 hours 44 min ago
Joined: Aug 18 2005 - 16:26
Posts: 432
Apple IIe cross-assembler IDE

a) cross-assemblers, there are many: http://hoop-la.ca/apple2/#assembler
b) https://github.com/OlivierGuinart and I know there is another one but I can't think of the name of it (I'm not using that particular OS you mentioned)
c) Many of those cross-assemblers work with 65c02 including Merlin32,
d) and what about Merlin32 ? http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/products/crossdevtools/merlin/

Offline
Last seen: 5 years 7 months ago
Joined: Aug 2 2018 - 13:15
Posts: 3
Thanks for the reply!

Well, the solution of Merlin32 for Visual Studio is indeed the ONLY solution on the whole internet and it is very close to what I want (an IDE that does everything, from writing text file to running a binary file) BUT........it uses the syntax of Merlin 16+ which is 80% compatible with the syntax from Merlin Pro, which I am using. Besides, trying to make this program work is very difficult for me, cause I never used Visual Studio and there is no documentation with the program to describe what to do and how to do it.

Anyways!

At least, is there a text editor for Windows that has syntax highlighting 100% compatible with Merlin Pro (not Merlin 8/16/16+)?

If not, I guess I have to do it like the old days. Using Merlin's build-in text editor.....

Offline
Last seen: 4 years 6 months ago
Joined: Dec 2 2013 - 16:09
Posts: 44
You don't have to use Visual

You don't have to use Visual Studio.  You can use any windows text editor and then use Merlin 32 to do the assembly. 

 

Trust me... it's MUCH easier to program on a large screen.  You can have AppleWin running in one window, cider press in another, the editor in another.  It's massively better than in the old days.

Offline
Last seen: 10 hours 32 min ago
Joined: Jul 5 2018 - 09:44
Posts: 2516
I wrote my own 65C02 cross

I wrote my own 65C02 cross assembler, but it is command line based, although I generally use it with build scripts or make files which could easily be automated in an IDE like Eclipse or whatever.  The scripts I use make things very easy because I can edit the source code, kick off my build script and it will assemble my code, put it into a disk image in a directory where my emulator can see it or copy it to a USB stick which I can plug into the CFFA 3000 or an SD card for my FloppyEmu if I want to test on real hardware.  The other thing is I don't use Windows, and while the code I've written should work on Windows if you have something like Cygwin, Strawberry Perl or ActiveState installed, I've never tried it because I don't even have Windows to do it.  My cross assembler mostly follows Merlin syntax and the first code I actually tried it on was the examples from the Assembly Lines book.  One of the reasons I didn't just use Merlin 32, although it is an excellent assembler is I also wanted to be able to easily assemble code written for the Lisa 2.5 and EDASM assemblers, etc.  I also wrote a disassembler while I was at it.

 

https://github.com/softwarejanitor/as65

 

https://github.com/softwarejanitor/da65

 

 

Offline
Last seen: 3 years 4 weeks ago
Joined: Jul 3 2019 - 01:31
Posts: 9
Try Retro Assembler

I recently started down this path myself and was frustrated by the process. What I settled on was an assembler with a good Visual Studio Code integration.

It's called Retro Assembler (https://enginedesigns.net/retroassembler/

It's more geared towards S/NES / Commodore 64 development, but it can do 6502 or 65c02 and output to a bin format you can throw on a disk image with AppleCommander. So my workflow is using VSCode (with all my preferences for editing), then it compiles, runs a batch file that places the compiled bin into a disk image, then loads up AppleWin for testing with just one command. With a little tweaking I was able to get the disk image to immediately launch my program at startup, so the iteration time is really good.

 

Log in or register to post comments