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Re: Some questions about Apple IIc and Assembly Programming
calibrator@freenet.de wrote:
On 21 Mrz., 10:18, "Michael J. Mahon" <mjma...@aol.com> wrote:
What you're missing is an assembler and its manual.
An excellent one in wide use in the Apple II community is Merlin.
It and its documentation have been released as freeware, and it
is available on the web:
Michael, you're programming him to ask next how to make
the disks so that he can feed them to his IIc! ;-)
Perhaps adding that he can find many infos in the Apple FAQs
will enable him to go that route. Also the search function in
Google Groups is immensely helpful as there are already lots
of threads about it.
While I agree that Merlin is one of the best choices to program
directly on the Apple I hesitate to recommend it until he got some
sort of mass storage device (unless he wants to handle disks
a lot) and use a cross assembler instead.
Limitless mass storage capacity, easy transfers of data into the
host environment and the ease of consulting reference
documentation on the same screen (PDF- or text files) are the
main advantages - not even mentioning a speed advantage that is
incomparable to anything running on any Apple II hardware.
I certainly agree if he is planning to write large programs
and doesn't enjoy using the Apple II hardware he has.
For small to moderate sized programs, speed is hardly an issue,
and the Apple II is quite adequate.
WRT the issue of creating disks, I presume that he's already done
that, but if he hasn't, he will need to learn that, too--unless
he just wants to program "virtual Apple II's".
General FAQ:
http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/A2FAQs2CONTENT.html
Programming FAQ:
http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/csa2pfaq.html
*especially the first three questions*
For me, writing programs for an Apple II and running them on an
emulator is interesting only insofar as it facilitates my running
them on a real Apple II. ;-)
Cross development is appropriate in some cases, but for me it
suggests that the native platform just isn't suitable for self-
hosting, which I find not to be true at all.
Part of the "retro" experience is using the tools and techniques
that shaped the platform and its applications, IMHO.
-michael
******** Note new website URL ********
NadaNet and AppleCrate II for Apple II parallel computing!
Home page: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon/
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