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Atari 800XL ASM programming on emulator


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I am doing this right now (for a little game I am programming which I am going to release later).

 

My toolchain is:

  • Windows PC (Windows 7)
  • Altirra 2.40: Emulator (yes, I know, it's an old version)
  • Notepad++ with the »NppExec«-Plugin: this is my IDE
  • ATasm: Atari-Assembler

Works perfect for me.

 

Kind regards,

Henrik Fisch

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I use latest Altirra, MADS, and PSPad. It's simple editor, has some basic projects, it's easy to configure so you have 1 key compile, with jumping on errors. All I ever needed. WUDSN is worth checking out, if you can stand Eclipse. I can't :-D

 

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I develop with :

 

Altirra

MADS assembler

VSCode, with the MADS plugin for highlighting according to MADS syntax.

 

Just remember to test on a real Atari before releasing as there are differences. Emulators typically have zero in the unused memory locations, whereas this isn't the case neccesarily eith real hardware.

 

Please note that what you are doing is not out of the ordinary, I expect that the majority of eight bit coders are doing it this way.

 

 

 

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42 minutes ago, snicklin said:

I develop with :

 

Altirra

MADS assembler

VSCode, with the MADS plugin for highlighting according to MADS syntax.

 

Just remember to test on a real Atari before releasing as there are differences. Emulators typically have zero in the unused memory locations, whereas this isn't the case neccesarily eith real hardware.

 

Please note that what you are doing is not out of the ordinary, I expect that the majority of eight bit coders are doing it this way.

 

 

 

You can actually select how the memory would look on startup in Altirra ;-)

Testing on real hardware is important though. My issue usually is Altirra loads XEX instantly, where real hardware takes some time, which can show glitches during application startup.

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On 6/24/2020 at 9:47 PM, Max_Chatsworth said:

I thought it might be easier to develop 800XL software with Assembly on an emulator, either to start of with, or always.

 

Is anyone doing this and has a recommendation? 

Wouldn't do that nowadays. Use an assembler and editor on the host system, e.g. ca65 and emacs. Then test in the emulator. You have all the facilities of the host system, not only an editor, but also a version management system, a powerful command line etc.

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On 6/27/2020 at 3:55 AM, thorfdbg said:

Wouldn't do that nowadays. Use an assembler and editor on the host system, e.g. ca65 and emacs. Then test in the emulator. You have all the facilities of the host system, not only an editor, but also a version management system, a powerful command line etc.

@thorfdbg Thanks for that. Yeah..since posting this I've discovered WUDSN and definitely think I'll give that a try. Integrated debugging with Altirra emulator, etc.  I'll probably go that route for now and see how it works out. 

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On Linux (made a Docker container once to use with Windows):

 - GVIM (with a few plugins and macros)

 - cc65, ld65 (steep learning curve, but very powerful for complex stuff when using memory maps for the linker)

 - atari800 (linux) for quick test runs

 - Altirra (using wine) for extensive debugging (it is awesome for that!)

 - (if needed) Makefile to do all kinds of gfx conversions and data packing

 

Edit:

Serial cable to real 800XL hooked up to old CRT monitor for testing if it runs on the real thing and gazing at the nicely blended pixels.

 

Edited by Creature XL
Added serial cable
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On 7/12/2020 at 6:00 PM, bhall408 said:

Anyone using cc65 (or similar) and a text editor (such as BBEdit) on Mac?

I have written some things using cc65 and Sublime Text 3 which is great for editing and building, not sure if Sublime

is available for a Mac, I use Windoze.

 

Here's a link to some tutorials from @Yaron Nir in this forum

 

 

Edited by TGB1718
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  • 2 years later...

Sorry for reviving this old thread, but can anyone point me to some fool proof tutorial showing me how to write some basic A8 asm startup up code, how to assemble and start it in a emulator correctly.

 

Somehow whatever I tried doesn't work.

 

Used MADS and atari800macx so far, but also tried the atasmbridge in Visual Studio code.

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How are you using MADS, through an editor/build environment ?

 

What do you mean by 

29 minutes ago, Steril707 said:

A8 asm startup up code

MADS by default creates executable code that can be run from any DOS

 

For Windows, I think most use Eclipse with the WUDSUN-IDE not sure if that's available for MAC 

makes coding/building and running code very easy.

 

Essentially I use Altirra, have a folder mounted as a DOS 2.0 drive, when I compile code into a .XEX

I drag and drop that file into the mounted folder on the PC and the code is immediately available in the emulator

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19 minutes ago, TGB1718 said:

How are you using MADS, through an editor/build environment ?

 

What do you mean by 

MADS by default creates executable code that can be run from any DOS

 

For Windows, I think most use Eclipse with the WUDSUN-IDE not sure if that's available for MAC 

makes coding/building and running code very easy.

 

Essentially I use Altirra, have a folder mounted as a DOS 2.0 drive, when I compile code into a .XEX

I drag and drop that file into the mounted folder on the PC and the code is immediately available in the emulator

Ah thanks..

Seems it already worked, I was just too dumb to check the output at the right place in the RAM through the debugger.

So, on to try out DL/DLIs next.. :D

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On 6/24/2020 at 3:47 PM, Max_Chatsworth said:

I thought it might be easier to develop 800XL software with Assembly on an emulator, either to start of with, or always.

 

Is anyone doing this and has a recommendation?  

 

I didn't see this in the pinned topics or search. 

 

Thanks!

I'm doing the 5200 and it's nearly identical. Want to do 5200 instead? (Also, 5200 has larger cart sizes)

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