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Re: cc65 for Apple 2?



Scott Alfter wrote:
In article <mt-dnYFh8uiszZzVnZ2dnUVZ_jidnZ2d@comcast.com>,
Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:

Scott Alfter wrote:

In article

<c283ecb8-9b10-4ba0-9b34-fe3c53f12fd9@b64g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>,

Harry Potter  <maspethrose7@aol.com> wrote:


I have cc65 and some Win32-based Apple 2 emulators and am wondering
how to create Apple 2 programs for the Apple 2.  I am more of a
Commodore person, but I find the graphics modes funny and am
interested in exploring Apple 2 programming.  What do I need to know?


The biggest gotcha with the binaries generated by cc65 is that they have a
header tacked on at the beginning that interferes with proper loading.  It's
four bytes, with the load address and length.  Something like this command
sequence will extract the header info:

BLOAD FOO,A$800,L4,T$00
PRINT PEEK(2049)*256+PEEK(2048)" "PEEK(2051)*256+PEEK(2050)

With the header information extracted, you can rewrite the file in the
proper format: ([X] is the load address, [Y] is the length)

Sounds like a DOS binary file without the "BIN" type.


If by "DOS" you mean "DOS 3.3," I wouldn't know...last time I did anything
semi-serious with DOS 3.3 would've been over 20 years ago.  I don't recall
binary files having any sort of header under DOS 3.3, but my memory could be
faulty.  They definitely don't have a header under ProDOS, which is all that
I use...all of the necessary metadata gets stored in the directory entry.

Right--that's exactly the transform to convert a DOS binary file to
a ProDOS binary file--and it's done automatically by Copy II Plus,
among many others.

I, too, prefer ProDOS and use it for (almost) all my development
efforts.  But it is undeniable that the vast majority of Apple II
software is DOS-based, and many folks without hard drives prefer
it to ProDOS.

That's why I have also made a DOS 3.3 version of NadaNet available.  ;-)

-michael

NadaPong: Network game demo for Apple II computers!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."