HI I NEED TO MAKE A CLOCK AND DISPLAY A MESSAGE EVERY HOUR.
IM USING THE 6502 SIMULATOR VER. 1.1.9.20

Do your own homework please.

We just went through this, but you didn't see it because the original poster also had a similarly non-descript subject name: "Hello,every body,can u help me ?" at http://www.6502.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=802 . So right now we have three of these in a row here under Programming.

We're not in the habit of doing people's homework for them, but we'll be glad to try to help you understand what you need to do. The other thread tells about actually keeping time.

But even with a simulator, there must be some hardware that you're simulating; and what that hardware is will partly determine how you're going to display the time and message. When I took that first 6502 class almost 25 years ago, we had AIM-65's in the classroom, and they had a routine in their ROM called OUTCH (for "OUTput CHaracter") that took care of figuring out which LED segments to light up and which character position in the display was available next and so on. I believe other computers also had a routine with the same name. To start a new line, we would just put the <CR> character ($0D) in A and do JSR OUTCH; and then each new character we would add to the line again required putting the character (its ASCII value) in A and calling OUTCH. If you're not simulating existing hardware and accompanying firmware, you'll have to write OUTCH or its equivalent too, but new students are usually given a set of these basics ready-made so they don't have to understand so much before seeing meaningful results the first time. (That was extra valuable on the AIM-65 when it came to the built-in printer, since making a mistake in telling it how to print could easily burn the print head. Obviously the school would rather have us do that part of our learning at someone else's expense.)

If you have more-specific questions with some information on what you have to work with, we can give more-specific help.

That reminds me - must get back to building the desk clock for my friend. Should be nice as it's going to be using an Noritake-Itron GU256x128E-3900 VFD graphic display module.

Been playing around with it to get used to the command structure using their MODMAST software and connecting it to a PC serial port. Should be very nice when finished and must try and post some details on it with pics.....

I'll have to buy some 65c02 and 65c22's from WDC though - out of old ones...

It might be a good idea to have a page with some guidelines about posting homework questions. Things like "be honest about it being homework", "don't assume anybody is familiar with the emulator you're using", and things they should know before they post (like how to output a character). An example of a good question might also be helpful. Something like "I found the division routines in the repository, and I tried this, this, and this, but I don't understand how make them work for two 8-bit numbers" shows that the poster did some research, took some initiative, is legitimately stuck, and needs help being pointed in the right direction.

Anyway, with a page of guidelines, we can always just reply with a friendly reminder (as the poster may have just innocuously missed the guidelines -- I know I didn't get much sleep in college and was certainly prone to overlooking the obvious) to please read the guidelines before posting a homework question if the poster had clearly not done so. I don't know if creating a separate forum section for homework is worth considering or not.