Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!killer!elg
From: elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm
Subject: Re: Last call for votes on comp.binaries.cbm and comp.sources.cbm
Summary: Really, assemblers.
Message-ID: <4672@killer.UUCP>
Date: 2 Jul 88 05:33:38 GMT
References: <7325@j.cc.purdue.edu> <6409@well.UUCP> <1800@looking.UUCP>
Organization: The Unix(R) Connection, Dallas, Texas
Lines: 44

In message <1800@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) says:
>There is an "official" source code format, namely the one supported by
>the CBM assembler, my own PAL assembler and its clones.  Not that this
>will stop people from providing stuff in different formats.

Err, last, I heard, PAL used tokenised BASIC program files for its
storage format, not text. Is that REALLY an "official" source code
format? Not to mention that I have had absolutely no success cranking
PAL code through the CBM assembler, for one simple reason:

     SIX-CHARACTER LABELS.

Most PAL programs use REAL labels, which the CBM assembler barfs on.

Not to mention that PAL's  pseudo-ops are totally different from the
CBM assembler's.... but you already knew that.

>
>The official format is:
>	Free Format (no indent required)

Broken, in Commodore's new assembler in the 128 Devpac

>	All 6502 opcodes reserved words
>	=, *=, .byte, .word, .end  are official pseudo-ops
>	Address mode formats as in the books, ie:  (addr),y
>	and "rol a"

Those all seem fairly good. Except for "rol a". I keep banging my head
against that instruction as I wobble crazily from assembler to
assembler (at last count, 5 different assemblers that at one time or
another I've worked with regularly). I can never remember which ones
want "rol a" and which ones want just plain "rol".

Actually, it's fairly easy to convert something from one assembler to
another. The problem comes when they use special features of their
particular assembler... such as PAL's .goto's, CASSM's #if, HCD65's
"local labels".... or when you're wanting to go backwards to the CBM
assembler (where you run into the 6-character-label lamppost). 

--
Eric Lee Green    ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg
          Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509              
"Is a dream a lie if it don't come true, or is it something worse?"