Re: Merlin assembler question

[mdj <mdj.mdj@gmail.com>]

On Jun 19, 2:18 am, aiiad...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Jun 18, 7:26 am, "(Wolfgang Kemper)" <wkem...@ti.com> wrote:
>
> > Hmm, it should do it.
> >  It also mentioned it in the Manual to go to the monitor and review
> > the program.

If you're using Merlin 8 or Pro on a 128k Apple II, Merlin (plus your
object code) reside in Auxiliary memory. The current source file sits
in Main memory (starting at $900) and the Merlin interpreter starts at
$9E00. Macros will eat up space below $9E00, as will USEing other
files. Any main memory address below $900 should be considered "used".

If your program is small (which it must be to be running in page 3),
you can try assembling it with an ORG of say, $6000, which is right in
the middle of the free memory. After issuing an ASM to assemble to
memory, you need to do a GET $6000, which will transfer your code to
main memory at $6000. You can then do a MON to enter the monitor and
play around, and your code will be there. Free memory really starts
where your source file stops, so if you're insistent on testing from
within Merlin, you will want to consider having a small master source
file which uses the PUT directive to source in various (small) chunks
of your program you've kept in seperate files.

Keep in mind that doing this on a IIgs is probably not going to work,
due to the reorganisation of the ROM on a IIgs and Merlin's creative
way of allowing monitor access.

The best advice I can give here, is to get used to not being able to
assemble very large program chunks and test them from with Merlin - it
simply uses too much memory itself once you start writing larger
programs. The best thing to do is to team up ProSEL with Merlin and
use the two to make switching back and forward between the two as
quick as possible. On an accelerated machine with a mass storage
device of some type, it's so quick there's hardly any difference, once
you start setting up ProSEL to launch BASIC.SYSTEM, and have an EXEC
file automatically BLOAD everything you need to start testing. You can
switch between the two with a handful of of keystrokes.

Matt