Re: Aztec C

[Bill Buckels <bbuckels@escape.ca>]

Did someone mention Aztec-C?

When I first resurrected my Apple II Aztec C cross-compiler I took the
time to upload some of my work that I produced using this compiler to
ftp.apple.asimov.net and it was deleted and was consequently never
made available. That ticked me off and I haven't done much posting on
the Apple II stuff since. Whoever is over there running that thing
should be ashamed of themselves.

Apple II Oldies by Bill Buckels

http://www.clipshop.ca/DiskImages/index.htm

Then I put-up my Aztec-C Museum Website:

http://www.clipshop.ca/Aztec/index.htm

And for anyone who is interested, I have indeed made available an
Apple II development environment which is configured to run under
Windows XP and produce ProDOS 8 programs. I am also prepared to answer
questions that you might have on using this compiler (as time permits
of course). One more thing... the programs that I have available for
download are not just demo programs... and I have added a synopsis of
one of those below:

http://www.clipshop.ca/Aztec/index.htm#apple

Apple II Compilers

Native Compilers

Manx Aztec C65 for Apple II DOS 3.3
C II Vers. 1.05i 6502 and INTERP
(C) 1982, 1983 by Manx Software Systems

Aztec C65 for Apple II DOS 3.3 Disks 1 to 3 and Minimanual
Aztec C65 for Apple II DOS 3.3 Disks 4 to 8

Aztec C65 for the Apple II ProDOS
Version 3.2b
15 July 1986

Aztec C65 for the Apple II ProDOS Disks 1 to 3
Aztec C65 for the Apple II ProDOS Disks 4 to 8

Manx Aztec C 6502 for Apple II ProDOS Alphabetical (more or less)
Functions
Manx Aztec C 6502 for Apple II ProDOS Alphabetical (more or less)
Utility Commands

Cross Compilers

Original MS-DOS Apple II Cross-Compiler Disks

This zip file contains the original MS-DOS disks from the Manx Aztec
C65 Version 3.2b Cross-Development environment for the Apple IIe. It
does not contain diskimages for the Apple side of this compiler but is
believed to be otherwise complete. However this will not be of much
interest unless you are willing to put a fair amount of effort into
creating a working environment or you are a collector. The AppleX
distribution below is 100% functional and will likely suit most people
better.

AppleX ProDOS Distribution rebundled for Windows XP

This is a "scaled-down" version of the Manx Aztec C65 Version 3.2b MS-
DOS cross-development environment for an Apple IIe with 128K of memory
running PRODOS 8.

It is targetted specifically at writing PRODOS SYS programs. It does
not provide support for Apple II's running DOS 3.3 and it does not
provide support for Aztec C Pcode. Other than that, none of the run-
time library functions have been removed that were in the original
distribution.

Programs are written and compiled on the IBM-PC and then moved to an
Apple IIe or to an emulator disk image to be run.

A modified Graphics link library is provided which has been extended
to support the use of bit-mapped graphics images, sound routines, and
the use of auxilliary memory.

The build environment has been configured to run under Windows XP and
a pre-configured shortcut has been provided for this purpose as well
as a make utility program and some additional programs to be used in
conjunction with make.

Several sample programs are provided, each with its own MAKEFILE and
each can be reviewed for information on how to write your own PRODOS
SYS programs.

Getting Started

Unzip the ZIP file with directories intact onto the root of your C:
Drive. The Windows XP shortcut has been pre-configured to use this
directory structure.

Open the C:\AppleX folder in MyComputer and click-on the shortcut. A
cmd window will open, and you will be in the C:\AppleX directory which
is the parent directory for this environment. The required environment
variables to build Aztec C PRODOS programs are set for you, and you
can build these anywhere on your computer from this cmd window.

You must be somewhat familiar with DOS commands to use this build
environment.

You can test the environment by building the programs in the SAMPLES
subdirectory.

Each has its own MAKEFILE which will build a PRODOS SYS program simply
by typing "make" and pressing [ENTER] while in each's project
directory under SAMPLES.

What You Will Need

You can write your own programs in notepad or your favorite
programmer's editor. This environment doesn't provide an editor.

You should get a copy of the Aztec C Manual which is available online
at

http://www.clipshop.ca/Aztec/cat1.htm and http://www.clipshop.ca/Aztec/cat2.htm

This will provide you with the original text of the printed manual for
the C65 compiler and considerably more information than the SAMPLES
that are included in this environment.

You will also need an Apple II emulator like Apple II Oasis that
provides a Disk Manager unless you have a real Apple IIe and can
download one at

http://www.clipshop.ca/DiskImages/

You can also download a PRODOS DiskImage at the above URL and delete
all but PRODOS and use it as a master for your own programs.

If you wish to create full-screen bitmapped graphics for the Apple II
you may wish to download the ClipShop program from the following link:

http://www.clipshop.ca

Other than that, all you need is the ability to write and compile
programs in the C programming language.

Review the various ReadMe files in this environment for additional
notes.

ReadMe for the "What Time Is It?" Project
For Apple //e ProDOS 8
Written in Aztec C65 in the AppleX Cross-Development Environment
(C) Copyright Bill Buckels 1991-2008
All Rights Reserved.

Overview

This project assumes that you have the AppleX environment installed
and that you are working within the Windows XP cmd window that the
shortcut that comes with AppleX provides.

I am not going to explain this further.

If you don't know what I'm talking about install AppleX available from
my Aztec C website at:

http://www.clipshop.ca/Aztec

This project is a complete build environment under AppleX for both the
English and French Versions of "What Time Is It?".

It does not contain the IBM Graphics and the intermediate files that
were used to build the finished graphics that are provided with this
project. I'll release all that separately if at all because that
requires lots of explanation that really isn't related directly to the
programming of this. I may already have done so by the time you are
reading this.

In deciding to release this source code as a working project, I just
felt that to confuse an already complicated environment further by
adding all sorts of graphics processing would distract you from
understanding how the source code all gets put together into a
program.

You can read the document "WhatTimeIsIt.txt" for the usual user-level
drivel or just run the program and read the source code to see how it
works.

This project also comes with working french and english Apple II
emulator diskimages of the completed project for whatever diabolical
amusement they may provide.

Overlays

Since memory is not abundant on the Apple //e I have broken this
project into overlays. Overlays have always needed lots of fiddling
because you need to make sure that they remain as small as possible.
Common routines used by all overlays are stored in the main module. In
this case, TIME.SYSTEM (time.c).

Routines specific to an overlay are stored in that overlay.

In this project, overlays are used in a couple or three ways. However,
every overlay in this project occupies exactly the same area of
memory, and each is called in its own turn from the main module
TIME.SYSTEM (time.c).

CINIT.OVR and PLOGO.OVR are initialization overlays. The code they use
is not shared by the other modules. FLOGO.OVR is the french equivalent
of PLOGO.OVR.

When "What Time Is It?" starts-up it calls these. All this is pretty-
well commented in TIME.C and further in the respective overlays'
source code.

MAINMENU.OVR is a navigational overlay (a switchboard of sorts) and is
called after initialization from TIME.SYSTEM. But since there is no
point in using memory when a menu choice is selected, this overlay
comes and goes as required.

When a menu choice is selected from MAINMENU.OVR the corresponding
overlay for the menu choice is loaded.

TIME0.OVR, TIME1.OVR, and TIME2.OVR are the overlays for activities
selected from MAINMENU.OVR. Again, you can review the source code in
time.c to see how this all works.

Upon sucessful completion of the activities in TIME0.OVR, TIME1.OVR,
and TIME2.OVR a respective reward overlay is called; either
TIME0A.OVR, TIME1A.OVR, or TIME2A.OVR.

English and French Versions

As I said in the beginning, PLOGO.OVR and FLOGO.OVR are really the
same program with English or French being set respectively within
each. This is somewhat of a hack, and to see how the english and
french versions are actually built, the MAKEFILE should be reviewed in
addition to the source for for PLOGO and FLOGO.

Another difference between the English and French Versions is the
image libraries for each; TIME.RIB and FTIME.RIB. The only difference
between these two libraries is the screen for MAINMENU.OVR; TIME.RIB
contains an English
screen and FTIME.RIB contains a French Screen.

The third (and final) difference is in the English and French title
screens; PLOGO.RAG and FLOGO.RAG.

Again, the MAKEFILE should prove informative for further info as to
exactly what I do to build an English and French version of "What Time
Is It?" by substituting the 3 English artifacts mentioned above with
their French equivalents to build a French version.

All this hacking might seem a little inelegant, but it was all done
for various reasons, of which one was that the publisher did not want
to provide both versions on the same disk so there was no requirement
to switch between languages on the fly. Disk space was at a premium as
well, as was memory so not mixing the versions in the same executable
program distribution kept the disk size and memory usage to a
reasonable minimum. So I hacked it this way, and delivered it this
way, and since the finished product all worked I moved on.

So what you have here is an English program that is patched when it is
built to create a French Version with what I considered minimal effort
at the time.

Auxilliary Memory

Perhaps the most valuable information in this project is how I use the
upper RAM bank on the Apple //e to store and retrieve my graphics.
Reviewing this source code and the G2 library source code that I
provided with AppleX should
clarify how this is all done.

Clock Routines

My clock routines are done using a fairly sparse table driven
methodology, again in a an effort to run as quickly as possible with
as little memory usage as possible.

Exactly how this is done can be reviewed in the circlepoints routines
that are in any of the TIMEO, TIME1, and TIME2  modules. The reason
this code is repeated in each of those overlays goes back to saving
memory by balancing
overlays with each other and in the main module. If the main module
gets too bulky then other overlays won't have room to run. I moved
evrything around until it all fit, adding code and removing code as
required. This is the way
it ended-up working.

MAKEFILE, Directories, and DiskImages

I have arranged the build environment into a main directory and 3
subdirectories.

The MAKEFILE depends on these subdirectories as well as the AppleX
build environment which requires Windows XP.

The main directory contains all the source code and this ReadMe file
and its 2 associated text files, and the MAKEFILE and nothing else.

The RES (resources) subdirectory is used in conjunction with the
Makefile to create the English and French Versions from scratch.

The ENGLISH and FRENCH subdirectories are the GOAL directories and a
complete version of the program is created in each of these in their
respective languages.

The ENGLISH and FRENCH subdirectories also contain working DiskImages
of the finished project. They also contain PRODOS 8 but no additional
system files.

Compatibility

These programs have been used on real Apple //e's and Apple //e
emulators in Windows XP. They have also been tried and true back in
their development stage on Apple GS's and even on Macintoshes using
the Apple //e emulators of the day.

The Apple //e that I used to originally develop these on had a 5 MGHZ
zip chip which was an accelator that replaced the 6502 processor that
ran at 1 MGHZ. With the zip chip, my Apple //e ran quite as quickly as
my old true- blue IBM-PC or so it almost seemed when it came to this
sort of program.

Most importantly these programs all behaved well whether run in an
emulator or run in native mode.

So depite the fact that the code is a little messier than it would be
if I wrote it today, compatibility has never been an issue with these
programs as far as I know.

Final Comments

So what you have here is a real full-blown commercial program of the
flavour of the bygone Apple //e era complete with source code and some
pretty fair architecture for its day. It's not really very complicated
either, once you get into it, and if your were so inclined you could
use this whole affair as the basis for your own programs of a similar
nature.

Since you are obviously reading this for some reason of interest, I do
hope that my notes and this project satisfy whatever perverse reason
that finds you playing with all this old stuff in the first place.

Have Fun!

Bill Buckels
bbuckels@escape.ca
March 2008