BBC Micro "Sideways ROM" code

[BigEd]

Cheers - always good to see product shipped!
I don't remember seeing that forum before. It's brought me to the Amsterdam Compiler Kit, which merits more investigation.
Cheers
Ed

[mdpenny]

BigEd wrote:

Cheers - always good to see product shipped!
I don't remember seeing that forum before. It's brought me to the Amsterdam Compiler Kit, which merits more investigation.
Cheers
Ed

I came across it only recently, after finding StarDot (which, incidentally, has taken over the old "Stairway To Hell" forums).

[Windfall]

mdpenny wrote:

The reason I'd shelved working on the code was that, even with the grand total of 44KB of available RAM on a 6502 Second Processor, my BBC BASIC-wrapped code just plain ran out of memory, and I had no other way (at the time) of squeezing more source code in.

Anyhow, as cross-assemblers on modern machines have access to (effectively) unlimited RAM, this is no longer a problem - but who here is (or has) written ROM code for a BBC Micro using a cross assembler, which did you use, and why?

If you have a 32-bit Acorn machine (Risc PC, A5000, that sort of thing), you can use my patch for Basic V which allows it to assemble 6502 code instead of ARM code. You can find it here.

I use it myself (well, duh) to produce (and maintain) several BBC ROMs. Via 65Link (see same website) I can instantly load them into sideways RAM to test them, as well.

[mdpenny]

Windfall wrote:

If you have a 32-bit Acorn machine (Risc PC, A5000, that sort of thing), you can use my patch for Basic V which allows it to assemble 6502 code instead of ARM code. You can find it here.

I use it myself (well, duh) to produce (and maintain) several BBC ROMs. Via 65Link (see same website) I can instantly load them into sideways RAM to test them, as well.

Thanks for the pointer - I'd seen it in passing before, and I'm bound to look it out at some point; as it stands, a (DOS-based) assembler and (the Windows version of) "BeebEm" are doing well, especially as "BeebEm" emulates the B, B+ and Master 128, along with several second processors

--Martin

[Windfall]

mdpenny wrote:

Thanks for the pointer - I'd seen it in passing before, and I'm bound to look it out at some point; as it stands, a (DOS-based) assembler and (the Windows version of) "BeebEm" are doing well, especially as "BeebEm" emulates the B, B+ and Master 128, along with several second processors

Makes sense if you do plain assembly only.

I do a lot of additional stuff like conditional assembly (where conditions aren't simply 'defines'), generating tables (often depending on others), combining files, calculating offsets, hashes, specific optimizations, etc.. Which would be nigh impossible to translate to plain assembler format.

[mdpenny]

Windfall wrote:

mdpenny wrote:

Thanks for the pointer - I'd seen it in passing before, and I'm bound to look it out at some point; as it stands, a (DOS-based) assembler and (the Windows version of) "BeebEm" are doing well, especially as "BeebEm" emulates the B, B+ and Master 128, along with several second processors

Makes sense if you do plain assembly only.

I do a lot of additional stuff like conditional assembly (where conditions aren't simply 'defines'), generating tables (often depending on others), combining files, calculating offsets, hashes, specific optimizations, etc.. Which would be nigh impossible to translate to plain assembler format.

Yeah - one thing I certainly miss from using BBC BASIC's assembler is to do something like...

Code: Select all

        EQUW FN_do_crc_(start, end)

...which is handy for stuff like CFS/RFS CRC's.

--Martin

[Dr Jefyll]

Windfall wrote:

If you have a 32-bit Acorn machine (Risc PC, A5000, that sort of thing), you can use my patch for Basic V which allows it to assemble 6502 code instead of ARM code. You can find it here.

I use it myself (well, duh) to produce (and maintain) several BBC ROMs. Via 65Link (see same website) I can instantly load them into sideways RAM to test them, as well.

Welcome, John. I see this is your first post to 6502.org, although you've done some lurking here perhaps. I enjoyed my visit to your web site, where I see an interesting mix of original hardware and software. Also impressive are all the magazine articles you've published. I hope we hear more from you in future.

cheers,

Jeff

[Windfall]

mdpenny wrote:

Yeah - one thing I certainly miss from using BBC BASIC's assembler is to do something like...

Code: Select all

        EQUW FN_do_crc_(start, end)

...which is handy for stuff like CFS/RFS CRC's.

Well, you can always run my BASIC V patch via a Risc PC emulator . There's a free one called RPCEmu which claims to do the job. (I prefer a real one myself ...).

[Windfall]

Dr Jefyll wrote:

Welcome, John. I see this is your first post to 6502.org, although you've done some lurking here perhaps. I enjoyed my visit to your web site, where I see an interesting mix of original hardware and software. Also impressive are all the magazine articles you've published. I hope we hear more from you in future.

Why, thanks Jeff. Yes, I've been lurking for a couple of years (which is funnier in Dutch since 'lurk' means 'thumb sucking' ).