Greetings all,

New to the forum, old to the 6502. Recently got back to some 6502 fun.... tiny SBC design, some I/O, etc. Finding a good macro assembler was an issue. Finally found 65XX.com site (new site from WDC) and they are selling the ProSDK for $39.99. I bought it online and got an email from WDC to get my MAC address and they sent me some download links and a license file. I have it installed and running under a Win7 Pro 64-bit VM running under Fusion,

Regards, KM

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Regards, KM
https://github.com/floobydust

I'm curious as to what you found lacking in all the assemblers out there, that you would define a "good macro assembler".

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WFDis Interactive 6502 Disassembler
AcheronVM: A Reconfigurable 16-bit Virtual CPU for the 6502 Microprocessor

And why did WDC make a stupid decision to tie this product to a MAC address ? It's a big inconvenience for the customer, for what ? Protection of a $40 program ? Get real.

Yes, I found several assemblers on the net, some are quite good, but most won't run on newer versions of Windoze (64-bit version). I also found some non-standard syntax as the nice people who do take the time to write them (and offer them to the public) do things their own way, so there is little compatibility between them and not all support the additional CMOS opcodes. I found TASM to be quite functional, but only runs on older systems and the syntax is non-standard. I also found Michael Kowalski's 6502 IDE (even WDC recommend it but their link is outdated), nice package however.

As for tying the code license to a MAC address, it's not that uncommon. WDC has been selling their ProSDK for $395 for a long time (and it should considered the defacto standard for 6502/65C02/65816 development). They have now decided to drop the price by 90% (along with the 65xx site), which makes it easily affordable and includes a C compiler and IDE as well. I'd agree that there is some inconvenience, but with the invention of the internet, software companies have the same worries that music publishers had after the invention of the copying machine (where are they now?). Running a virtual machine makes it a lot easier as you can easily move the VM around and never worry about it. Still, I'd rather deal with a cryptic license key, but that only goes so far and has higher back-end costs (SW vendor) to enforce it and just as problematic.

Sadly, I'm just the messenger.... I thought it might be a welcome surprise to be able to get the ProSDK at such a low price, guess not.

Regards, KM

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Regards, KM
https://github.com/floobydust

Floobydust, it's good to have you. Let us know how it goes with ProDSK, and whatever nice features or disappointments you find. When comparing assemblers, I suppose the macro capabilities is where the greater differences will be. It's always hard to know what to recommend to someone new other than what we've already used, and no one person can really know a very high percentage of the available assemblers. I suppose they all do basic assembly, but to be lacking the CMOS instructions which have been out for 30 years now is a serious limitation. On the PC, I've been using Cross-32 (C32) from Universal Cross Assemblers (now distributed by Data Sync Engineering), and although I've made heavy use of macros for 25 years, I ran into a couple of bugs and shortcomings in C32's macro capabilities when I was recently doing my macros for program structures in assembly language, and had to find ways around them. It worked though. A nice thing about C32 is that it comes with the tables for dozens of processors, so you don't have to get another assembler for each one, and the manual tells how to make up your own tables to make the assembler work for a processor of your own design.

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http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

On Linux computers, at least, it's as easy to configure the mac address as it is to configure the IP address, the procedures are essentially the same. But I understand that this software is Windows-only. In any case I can ony agree that tying into the mac address is bad. I've bought lots of software in that price range over the years, and much more expensive software too, all without any kind of hardware locking-in. That doesn't mean I start distributing it around, if anything I have no interest in giving away something I paid for.. I really don't see the point of the lock-in. (On the other hand I've received software that comes with equipment I buy, sound recording equipment in particular, and some of that I end up never installing because there's a lot of hassle of having to register with the name of your firstborn and whatnot and installing some license key - if I even manage to get the procedure to work - it's all a bother that I can live without, and I do.)

-Tor

Hi floobydust,

I just want you to know that someone else might benefit from your post and to say thanks for posting

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Please visit my website -> https://sbc.rictor.org/

Yeah, I've read through the docs for the official SDK stuff before, but didn't know it's that inexpensive. I simply didn't see much in there that isn't already available from the free systems, as far as my needs go. I've done some pretty large and flexible systems with compile-time meta-programming and dynamic configuration all from the raw assembler perspective.

I could if see you have large existing codebases & libraries that standard syntax and file formats could be important. The others I don't really get. Even decade-old builds of tools I've got hanging around (assemblers as well as others) still run fine from my Vista x64 laptop, though I know that's a huge YMMV. Cygwin is always a great compatibility booster for build tools if things aren't working on the first try, as it seems that from at least the C64 dev community Linux is supported more than Windows in the build tools space.

Keep us updated!

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WFDis Interactive 6502 Disassembler
AcheronVM: A Reconfigurable 16-bit Virtual CPU for the 6502 Microprocessor

All,

Thanks for the feedback, comments, etc. Having been in the SW business for decades (on both sides of the debate), I'd be the first to agree on MAC address authentication as a bad idea. I usually see this is kind of thing on really expensive and specialized software, like Maya (Autodesk product for 3D animation/modeling). It's a very expensive package and the cost to design and build such a product requires some exceptionally skilled people... math PhDs, etc., creating very complex algorithms. You'll find the same in the high-end audio/video software business, like Avid, albeit they use a USB dongle approach via the iLok company to hold licenses for the base code plus plug-ins. But again, these are more specialized products with a very minimal user base compared to something like a windows license. So you sell thousands of licenses vs tens of millions of licenses, regardless of the cost to build the product.

On the other side of this particular coin, WDC also has a USB dongle which can be used on any machine as the license stays with the device, and has a higher cost at $150. In any case, I've swapped quite a few emails with WDC in the past few months and they've been very helpful and easy to work with. I'm not looking to tell them how to run their business however. Still, hardware breaks and/or gets retired regularly (a bit of odd statement on this forum) so expect a different MAC address on your new machine and the license no longer working. I would expect WDC staff to understand this and generate a new license file for you, but again, I'm not representing them here.

For me, it's not much of an issue at this point. I tend to use VMs quite a bit and can move them around from one host machine to another (my MacBook Air or desktop OSX system) running Fusion. You can simply "move" the image to a new machine. VMware senses this and will prompt you for either moving it or copying it (both valid options). If you declare you moved it, the existng MAC address assigned to the virtual network adapter stays the same. If you declare you copied it, VMware will regenerate a new MAC address to minimize the possibility of having two MAC addresses on the same network, which could cause some network related issues, especially with a DHCP server.

Finally, there are many free/fee options for creating 6502 code these days. Depending on your needs/wants/whims, you can pick and choose. Again, WDC dropped the price when they launched the 65xx site by 90%, so it's no longer an expensive IDE, but it's still the official IDE from the folks that own the IP on the chips and continue making them available (and I'm happy to help support them buying the chips and the IDE). I've bought tons of SW over the decades that has cost much more (than $40) and wasn't worth the diskette/CD it came on (and on multiple platforms). So again, I'm just the messenger, not looking to sway anybody, just sharing the information and my $0.02.

Regards, KM

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Regards, KM
https://github.com/floobydust

Thanks for the heads-up KM. $40 is much closer to a hobbyist or casual purchase - and presumably, you get a 65816 C-compiler for that. That's not something readily availably elsewhere.

Cheers
Ed

$40 for an '816 compiler and simulator (plus the other tools) is not at all bad IMHO.

However, I've downloaded the tools package and installed it on Win7 64 bit and it won't start - BORLNDMM.DLL missing. While waiting for my registration at the 65xx.com to be approved has anyone else had this problem?

Simon

Well, be careful about how you're going to install the missing file.. I would start by contacting the source of the package. If you try to download it from elsewhere you'll most likely hit a malware variant, they seem to be more easy to find than the real thing. See the second link.

http://www.freefixer.com/library/file/71066/ (explains, as we can easily guess, that this is the Borland memory manager)

http://www.2-spyware.com/file-borlndmm-dll.html

All,

When I bought the ProSDK, I was sent an email with some links for download and there were some updated files separate that needed to be placed in the /bin directory. I'm also running on Win7 Pro x64.... I initially had a license problem, but WDC figured that out and generated a new one... that fixed it.

Also, I guess I just assumed most folks here had poured thru the WDC site. The ProSDK includes C compilers and Macro Assemblers for the both the 65C02 and 65C816 chips plus a debugger. You can also link in additional apps to the IDE for Lattice, Aldec, a Logic Analyzer and UltraEdit. You can also run the components separate via a command prompt window.

Overall, when you consider what you're getting (sans MAC address authentication) I have to think it's a pretty good deal.

Regards, KM

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Regards, KM
https://github.com/floobydust