Posts

Showing posts from January, 2024

Expanded Tool Demo

So, we have demonstrated that this toolchain can produce a simple 6801 binary that will run on the MC-10 . But honestly, that was already available with TASM or other "absolute" assemblers available to the community. Surely there is something more to consider with this toolchain? Modules The primary advantage that I see with this toolchain is the ability to build object modules. This requires a few modifications to the source code, but allows for dividing the project in a modular way. Let's start by moving clrscn and prtstring to a separate source file (screen.s): LOC 0 SCREEN  equ     $4000 clrscn  ldx     #SCREEN         ldaa    #$40+'         ldab    #$40+' clrsc.1 std     ,x         inx         inx         cpx...

Unix-style binutils for Motorola MC6801

Intro My experience programming the Tandy MC-10 started around 2014, when I did a quick adaptation of a text-based "animation" adapted from the VZ-200 .  Then it continued in January of 2016 , when I ported my original CoCo game " Xmas Rush " to the MC-10. In those cases, I used simple "absolute" assemblers. They were simple, but effective. Use of something called TASM seems to be de rigueur for MC10 assembly language program development, but I don't see any features peculiar to TASM that would make it appeal to me any more than the simple assemblers that I had already been using. Most of my software development experience has been in a Unix, or Unix-like (e.g. Linux), environment, so those environments frame my perspective on how software should be developed. In an earlier project, I experimented with the Bruce Evans C compiler , configured to produce code for the Motorola 6809 CPU. That project included a simple Unix-style toolchain for what are o...