Re: 6502 Assembler books

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Alistair Ross wrote:

>I have the original "Red Book" - Apple II Reference Manual 1978, and 
>thanks to Craig Bower I now have the slightly more modern version of it 
>in JPEG format. However, Although I appreciate that the Monitor code 
>listing and other various parts of machine code listings which reside in 
>it are useful from a 'stand back and go -- oooh so that's what that 
>does" point of view - it doesn't give me what I need - a complete 
>listing of all the things that make the Apple II the Apple II - I need a 
>list of the things like $FDED = print stuff on the screen. There are a 
>few minimal pages which 'help you start' in the reference guide, but not 
>an exhaustive list. As for the softswitches that you refer to, I don't 
>know what they are, and I can't find them in either copy of the 
>reference manual, am I missing something?

As Don noted, the Red Book is not really what you need.  You
need the Reference Manual.

The built-in I/O, including the soft switches, is detailed on pages
78 and 79 of that manual.

I think, perhaps, you think the Apple II has a "secret trove" of
magical routines squirreled away somewhere.  Not so.  The
entire Monitor and all its capabilities are contained in just 2KB
of ROM (Applesoft BASIC is another 10KB).  And the entire
content of that Monitor ROM is listed (in two versions) in the
Reference Manual (as well as the "documented" entry points,
on pages 61-64).  Your machine almost certainly has the
"Autostart" version of the monitor.

If you want to understand how the Apple II is designed, so that
you can use it well, study the monitor and the built-in I/O
carefully.  You don't need to do it all at one sitting--you can
write some simple routines to explore, say, the text screen(s).

The Apple II is a profoundly simple design, with exceptional
capabilities--the very essence of elegance.  If you want to
explore it, you must take some time to understand it well.

And you will learn more about 6502 assembly coding in an
hour of study of the monitor than in ten hours of writing
"print string" routines!  ;-)

-michael

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Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/