Re: Interview with the Apple IIGS kid

[David Schmenk <dschmenk@gmail.com>]

On Wednesday, August 29, 2012 1:17:52 PM UTC-7, Michael J. Mahon wrote:
> <aiiadict@gmail.com> wrote:
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> > On Wednesday, August 29, 2012 5:23:57 AM UTC-7, thye...@gmail.com wrote:
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> >> ( 2012t829å	UTC+8H7ö2343ÒPolymorph™S
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> >>> I've just started teaching my 8 year old daughter to program in BASIC on 
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> >>> the IIgs also - so maybe you will have some competition in the future? 
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> >>> :-)  Mind you, its been at least 20 years since I did any BASIC, so the 
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> >>> teacher is teaching himself along the way.
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> >>> Anyway, well done guys.
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> >>> -- 
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> >>> Cheers,
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> >>> Mike
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> >>> Find my Apple II projects online at:
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> >>> http://apple2.sytes.net/
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> >> Thank you!
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> >> Ding Wen is now starting to look into... 6502 assembly language!
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> >> What is the simplest way for him to learn assembly? The fun way?
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> > Bob Bishop wrote a book called "apple visions"
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> > http://bob-bishop.awardspace.com/Apple-II/covers/av2.jpg
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> > If your son likes programming, 6502 is a natural graduation, and should
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> > be fun for him.  You need 6502 instruction reference,   
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> > http://www.obelisk.demon.co.uk/6502/reference.html#LSR
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> > Rich
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> And as soon as the 6502 manual is in hand, start reading good machine code.
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> The Apple II Monitor is an excellent beginning!
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> The only "warm up" to reading code might be a tiny, simple example--just to
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> prime the pump. I presume that binary and twos complement representations
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> It is a bit of a shock for someone used to a high level language to find
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> how many instructions are required just to do 16- or 32-bit arithmetic, let
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> alone floating-point.  ;-)
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> -michael - NadaNet 3.1 and AppleCrate II: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon

I wholeheartedly agree with Michael.  I learned 6502 starting with the code on page 48 of the Apple II reference manual.  A simple program that combines the concepts of the monitor, hex code, machine code, and mnemonics.  Along with the 6502 reference and monitor listings in the back, it was kind of like the Rosetta Stone for me.

Congratulations to Ding Wen and good luck,

Dave...