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6502 Python compiler

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2018 2:59 am
by dave
At the last North Dallas Area Retrocomputing Meetup, Bill Gee presented a project he's been working on--a python compiler for the 6502. It's preliminary--you can write simple programs, but can't yet define named functions, and some other important things. He is looking to make this as pythonic as possible, which means no compromises to make things efficient on the 6502, such as 8- and 16-bit numeric types. However, it will be interesting to watch. I've tried it on an OSI superboard and it works, but takes a while to download even simple programs at 300 baud, even at 1200 baud.

Here's the github page: https://github.com/BillGee1/PY65

It looks like so far, he's only posted binaries for the compiler, assembler, and 6502 simulator. I am hoping he can be persuaded to release the source.

Re: 6502 Python compiler

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2018 5:46 am
by BigEd
Interesting find! Likewise, I hope he shares his source. It's encouraging that he's given the project an MIT license... although I'm not absolutely sure he's on solid ground, as those executables will contain GPL code.

The name is unfortunate too: PY65 is rather like py65, an established project.
https://pypi.org/project/py65/