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text Editor for Assembly Language


charlietunaz

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Here's the story:

I typed in a program from a book using the E/A built-in editor using the Classic 99 Emulator. I originally saved it as VAR 80 Format (Y option), but when I loaded it back into the editor, it gave me a waring that "control characters were removed" and all line breaks were gone (code was all in one line) and I could not assemble the code as is, however, the file was readable using Notepad ++ and in the correct format, with line breaks.

 

When I saved the file without VAR 80 format (N option), the program opened correctly for editing and assembling using the E/A editor, but it was unreadable in Notepad ++

So the question is: Is there a Windows editor that I can use to type in Assembly code that can be loaded into the Editor Assembler, and what settings do I need to use to make the file readable and be able to assemble?

I've already tried adding CR/LF, removing CRLF and many other combinations using Notepad ++ and Word but none seem to work.

 

ea.JPG

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'Text' files on a 4A are not naturally compatible with modern text formats. 

 

By convention on the 4A a text file is a RECORD based file with DISPLAY type entries and a VARIABLE record length, with a typical record length limit of 80 characters. We commonly call them DV80 files. 

RECORD files on the 4A are more like database table store files than modern text files. For usage as source code, each record is a line. There is usually no end of line character. For usage in printing applications, the CR code is usually at the end of each record to instruct the printer to carriage return. It is archaic.  On disk, a DV80 file is a linked list of records starting with a length byte that can be used to navigate to the next record. It gets more complicated... like our emulators usually store files on the host operating system in a container called TIFILES or V9T9 files, that encapsulate the metadata about record length limits, and other good stuff.

 

You can proceed in naive mode... Classic99 has a cool feature in the DISK definition dialog that has it write DISPLAY VARIABLE files to windows text format. And another that allows opening windows text files as DISPLAY VARIABLE files.

 

With those 2 options enabled, you should be able to use windows programming editors, and still load the source into the assembler, or even the editor on the 4A.

Edited by jedimatt42
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You need to check "Read Windows Text as DV files" That way you can read both TI format files and .TXT format files

Optionally you can choose to "Write DV80 as Windows Text" which lets you write in a form that can be read by a text editor.

It's a good idea to include .TXT just so you know what format the file is in, but that is optional.

 

Depending on how involved you want to get, you may want to use a cross assembler. I use Asm994a, but there are at least two others available. Assembly is virtually instantaneous, and error messages are much easier to decipher.

 

DiskConfig.jpg.4999a71d6475ea61e526cc1f0acde267.jpg

 

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Wow, thank you all for your very detailed and helpful responses.  Looking closely at all the answers, I'm now particularly interested in the Asm994a cross assembler option.  I tried the program and works great.  I'm starting to learn TMS9900 assembly code, so I will probably start asking a lot of newbie questions in the near future.  Thanks again.

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On 1/15/2021 at 2:47 PM, Vorticon said:

Any test editor that can produce pure text files should work. Just paste your code inside the EA module editor in order to assemble.

 

ERRATA: Ignore what I stated above. Classic 99 does not allow pasting inside the EA editor. 

Uh... yes it does, I do that all the time.

 

Pasting works in any application that uses KSCAN.

 

image.thumb.png.3641d21fad9f6980b3a02d3f2506de17.png

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20 hours ago, senior_falcon said:

You need to check "Read Windows Text as DV files" That way you can read both TI format files and .TXT format files

Optionally you can choose to "Write DV80 as Windows Text" which lets you write in a form that can be read by a text editor.

It's a good idea to include .TXT just so you know what format the file is in, but that is optional.

I do use the READ option myself, it's quite safe, and requires the .TXT or .OBJ extension so Classic99 knows it's a text file.

 

I do not recommend the WRITE option, it's for very special circumstances and will break data if it's meant to be binary. When you need to write a one-off Windows text file, just enter your filename with the "?W" option, ie: DSK1.?W.MYFILE.TXT -- the ?W tells the disk system to use Windows format regardless of the configuration.

 

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On 1/17/2021 at 6:01 AM, Vorticon said:

Welp the paste option was grayed out when I tested it. I tried again now and it worked. I stand corrected. I must have done something wrong...

It's only greyed out if the clipboard doesn't contain text, something may have interfered with it between the copy and the paste. :)

 

 

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On 1/16/2021 at 10:45 PM, charlietunaz said:

Wow, thank you all for your very detailed and helpful responses.  Looking closely at all the answers, I'm now particularly interested in the Asm994a cross assembler option.  I tried the program and works great.  I'm starting to learn TMS9900 assembly code, so I will probably start asking a lot of newbie questions in the near future.  Thanks again.

Don't overlook the other cross assemblers. I have found that Asm994a works for me and so I have not been motivated to look at the other possibilities. It looks like xdt99 is a very nice package.

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6 hours ago, senior_falcon said:

Don't overlook the other cross assemblers. I have found that Asm994a works for me and so I have not been motivated to look at the other possibilities. It looks like xdt99 is a very nice package.

xdt99 is pretty terrific, it's what I used for Dragon's Lair. I still use Asm994a for one-off tests but I always feel guilty when I do. ;)

 

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On 1/15/2021 at 3:01 PM, charlietunaz said:

 

Here's the story:

I typed in a program from a book using the E/A built-in editor using the Classic 99 Emulator. I originally saved it as VAR 80 Format (Y option), but when I loaded it back into the editor, it gave me a waring that "control characters were removed" and all line breaks were gone (code was all in one line) and I could not assemble the code as is, however, the file was readable using Notepad ++ and in the correct format, with line breaks.

 

When I saved the file without VAR 80 format (N option), the program opened correctly for editing and assembling using the E/A editor, but it was unreadable in Notepad ++

So the question is: Is there a Windows editor that I can use to type in Assembly code that can be loaded into the Editor Assembler, and what settings do I need to use to make the file readable and be able to assemble?

I've already tried adding CR/LF, removing CRLF and many other combinations using Notepad ++ and Word but none seem to work.

 

ea.JPG

There is a Notepad++ Language file designed for TI-99 Assembly.  HERE

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  • 5 weeks later...
On 1/19/2021 at 1:43 PM, senior_falcon said:

Don't overlook the other cross assemblers. I have found that Asm994a works for me and so I have not been motivated to look at the other possibilities. It looks like xdt99 is a very nice package.

Thanks, I've also installed and have been using xdt99.  I really like the detailed error messages.

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