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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
December 20, 1988 10:00 pm Eastern
Topic: Apple II Assembly Language
Forum Leader: James Luther (AFL Jim)
AFL Jim Well, I'm ready to go here if everyone else is!
AFA Gary J Sounds good to me, have the banners passed our way yet?
AFL Jim No banners, but they aren't always a rule around here.
AFA Gary J Right.
AFA Gary J I was just wondering where everyone was. Vacation, I guess.
AFL Jim Once again, Rick and GS (BTW: what's your name?), welcome to the
Apple II
AFL Jim Development forum. Tonight's scheduled subject is Apple II
assembly language.
GS 816 my real name is Jim Shapiro, I have a consulting business in
Milwaukee
AFL Jim Good name, Jim :)
AFA Gary J Hi Marty
GS 816 that is named Group Support 8/16 (i.e. GS 816)
AFL Marty Hi
AFL Jim Hi Marty
AFA Gary J Hi Parik, Dave.
AFA Parik Hi all
Dave Lyons Howdy!
AFL Jim I'd like to start tonight's meeting by telling a little about a
book I
AFL Jim reviewed last month.
AFL Jim It's "Programming the Apple IIGS in Assembly Langauge" by Ron
Lichty and
Dave Lyons (I finished my last final a little early, so I made it on time
after all.)
AFA Parik :)
AFL Jim David Eyes. Ron and David both work in Apple's Developer Tools
group.
AFA Parik .
AFL Jim Their last book was "Programming the 65816"
AFA Gary J (good book)
AFL Jim Anyway, their new book is the firt book I've seen that shows how
to build a
AFL Jim desktop program from the ground up. I *do* mean the ground. They
start with
AFL Jim a simple program that prints "hello, world" to the text screen and
then add
AFL Jim code a little piece at a time to show how the tools interact with
each other
AFL Jim and why certain things must be done to support new additions. They
also cover
AFL Jim the basics of using the APW shell with assembly language
(sonething that is
AFL Jim lacking in most other books) - that includes macros, the MACGEN
utility,
AFL Jim code segments in your source code and data segments.
AFA Gary J I assume it explains how the APW shell works in connection with
assembling and
AFL Jim It should be in print sometime in January.
AFA Gary J linking the sample source code provided?
Gy813 whats the name of the newest book?
AFL Jim right, Gary
AFA Gary J Sounds good. An actual tutorial for IIGS assembly programming.
AFL Jim The title is "Programming the IIGS in Assembly Language" by Ron
Litchy and
AFL Jim David Eyes.
Gy813 thanks
AFL Jim I've already suggested that they write two more versions of this
book...
AFL Jim one for C and one for Pascal, maybe even one for BASIC although
there doesn't
AFL Jim seem to be *any* standards in the IIGS BASIC world.
AFL Jim Oh yeah... they will have an optional disk with all the programs
and source
AFA Gary J (I can tell I need some new book shelves already...)
AFL Jim code.
AFA Parik (do what I do Gary, wear the books... its great)
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Jim What's up with everyone else tonight?
RTAFT Sounds like a real good one. I enjoyed their first effort about
the 65xxx. I
RTAFT found it to be the first one to really make sense to me.
AFL Jim It's the book I use, too, Parik
AFL Jim (oops, Rick :)
AFA Parik :)
RTAFT :)
AFL Jim <- going blind
RTAFT I know the feeling!
AFL Jim Is it just here on AppleLink or is everyone switching over to the
ORCA/APW
AFL Jim assembler?
AFA Parik Orca is fun.
AFA Parik But Glen did say a new 16 bit version of Merlin is coming out.
AFA Gary J It's really all there is, if you want compatability with all the
samples.
AFA Gary J Merlin does the job, but needs to have an easier conversion
method.
RTAFT I am NO expert at assembly. I use MERLIN 8/16. Is there much of a
difference?
AFA Parik In the output, no. Getting to the final output, yes.
AFL Jim I don't have Merlin 8/16 (just Merlin Pro), but I've never been
one to write a
AFL Jim whole program in assembly unless I have to. The ORCA/APW system
lets you mix
AFL Jim object files from assembly, Pascal, C, whatever just by knowing
the names of
AFL Jim variables, procedure and functions.
AFA Parik Hi scott!
ScottG25 Hi Parik!
AFL Jim What would you say Merlin's greatest strength is?
ScottG25 <Hi Dave, Jim, Dwight, GS>
AFA Parik Speed
AFL Jim Speed?
AFA Gary J Speed in Assembly/linking
AFL Jim GMTA
AFA Parik :-)
AFA Gary J (But not necessarily debugging... :(
AFA Parik (Hi Bruce!)
DwightW1 convertin object to source code
AFA Parik What? Who wrotes buggy code? hee hee
AFL Jim The disassembler that comes with it is nice to have, too.
GS 816 I think that is that there are/were som many that learned on Big
Mac and the
GS 816 original Merlin
AFA Gary J Right. The Sourcerer is a nice plus.
AFL Jim Right, Jim. I learned with Merlin, too.
AFA Gary J (^^^ the disassembler)
AFA Parik Also the applesoft disassembler is great.
AFA Gary J I learned on the OLD LISA assembler.
AFA Parik ?
AFL Jim I've found ORCA makes MACROs much easier to use though... the fact
that it
AFL Jim comes with a complete macro library makes you see how much time
macros can save
AFL Jim you.
AFL Jim GA Parik
AFA Parik Is there a utility for Orca/M & APW that allows you to set all
attributes of a
AFL Jim (hi Kathryn)
AFA Parik file? I mean auxtype, etc.
KSUTHER Hi, sorry I'm late!
AFA Parik (and all accessible access bits :)
AFL Jim Parik: nope
AFA Parik Good. I'm almost done. :)
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Jim Going to donate it? :)
AFA Parik Of course. :) Which bit is the invisible bit?
AFA Parik Also should I display information about resource fork? Its in the
OPEN
AFA Parik GS/OS parameter table, but I'm not sure if I should even show
it.
Dave Lyons (Davex lets you fiddle with Auxtypes and access bits! :_
AFA Parik hehe
Dave Lyons (or even :)... :)
AFL Jim What does Davex not do, Dave?
Dave Lyons It doesn't search all the disks on your desk for a given file yet.
That's
Dave Lyons planned for a future version. :-)
DwightW1 what is davex, dave?
AFL Jim Parik. check page 105 of the GS/OS reference for a table showing
*all* the
AFL Jim access bits.
AFA Parik will do
Dave Lyons Dwight, Davex is a ProDOS 8 command shell & program launcher from
DAL Systems,
Dave Lyons which is me, Shareware for $25. It's available in the Utilities
library.
Dave Lyons (And Fun Stuff is going to start happening to Davex again, now
that I'm out of
Dave Lyons college & have more time to implement Good Ideas of my own & that
users have
Dave Lyons come up with.)
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Jim Davex-16?
AFA Parik Davex 32? :)
AFA Gary J And Nifty List too?
Dave Lyons That too! There'll be a Davex 16 one of these months...can't
promise whether
Dave Lyons it will be Shareware or not. Nifty List is already -16, but I
spoze you mean
Dave Lyons will interesting things start happening to it again too--Yes!
I'll get around
KSUTHER Sounds interesting. Nice name, Dave.
Dave Lyons to putting in the pattern search everybody wants, and fixing the
screen dump,
Dave Lyons and Who Knows what else!
AFL Jim Does everyone know what Nifty List is?
AFA Parik yes
AFL Jim Say no if you want Dave to explain.
DwightW1 thanks for the info dave (sorry, my modem disconnected me again)
RTAFT no
AFL Jim That's your cue, Dave
AFA Gary J :)
Dave Lyons Which name is inetersting, Kathy? Davex-16, or something else?
Dave Lyons Okay, Nifty List is...
Dave Lyons a CDA utility for programmers, or just people who like to wander
around the
Dave Lyons internals of the toolbox & their machine's memory & other people's
programs;
AFA Parik Hi Andy
Dave Lyons the original idea was to provide a command like the monitor's
L(ist) cmd to
AndyWells Hello
Dave Lyons disassemble 65816 code, but to display the NAMES of toolbox calls
and ProDOS
Dave Lyons calls in the margin. From that, it grew into a more general
utility that
Dave Lyons can, for example, show a list of all loaded toolsets along with
several useful
Dave Lyons pieces of info about each; display a list of allocated memory
blocks along with
Dave Lyons lots of useful stuff (like the Mangler) and also showing the name
of the
Dave Lyons file that owns that memory. You can also use it as a quick
reference for the
Dave Lyons toolbox (it knows the parameters for all the toolbox calls!), and
you can do
AndyWells Does anyone know of any debugger that will work in the 128k
enviroment??
Dave Lyons screen dumps (text only) and dump data structures like Windows,
Ports, Control
Dave Lyons lists, etc. That gives you a fair idea; ask if I haven't told you
enough! :)
Dave Lyons [It's available in the AUT library as well as the ADV library, I
think.]
AFL Jim I know it is.
RTAFT Sounds like you put a LOT of effort into it. I think I'll try it
out :)
KSUTHER Dave, how can we publish information on Shareware products and
protect authors.
AFL Jim Rick, it is a IIGS CDA
KSUTHER You know, so they still benefit from their efforts.
RTAFT I know - I'll bother the dealer. :)
KSUTHER Any ideas on the subject?
Dave Lyons RTAFT--yes, lots of effort, but mainly for selfish reasons: I
needed the thing
Dave Lyons to debug my own programs!
AFA Gary J InCider is doing something with that, Kathryn.
Dave Lyons Kathy, I guess I don't understand the question--how is publishing
info on
Dave Lyons Shareware products a problem in the first place?
KSUTHER If we publish the code, it is all over. Really PDS.
KSUTHER You commented about this a while back.
AFA Gary J (Oh. InCider doesn't publish the code!)
Dave Lyons You wouldn't want to publish Nifty List code anyway...would take
many
Dave Lyons issues! Or am I misunderstanding you?
AFA Parik Why not just ask the author?
KSUTHER Yea. Perhaps I misunderstood Dave.:)
DwightW1 i think kathy means downloading the code from an online service
DwightW1 ..getting away with it and for FREE!.. am i right kathy?
KSUTHER It would be great to be able to make the code available in that
fashion, yes.
AFL Jim Kathy, did you mean publishing code as shareware in a magazine?
KSUTHER I would like to get information out on great Shareware products.
And help
KSUTHER authors make a profit at the same time.
AFL Jim If so, I think the better way would be to provide information in
the magazine
AFA Gary J Perhaps you could just have the author do an article about
programming some
AFL Jim and supply the software on disk (with the author's permission)
AFA Gary J aspect of the shareware program, something like Dave did with the
P8CDA
KSUTHER I'm hoping Dave Lyons will grace our pages again.
Dave Lyons I plan to!
AFA Gary J (It was useful information, without giving the program away!)
Dave Lyons Well, Shareware is freely distributable--if you want to provide it
on disk,
Dave Lyons that's no problem as long as I keep the copyright. Nifty List is
already
Dave Lyons available on some cheap ($3 or so?) disk from TechAlliance, I
think. Probably
Dave Lyons an outdated version right now, but that'll be fixed.
KSUTHER No, certainly not to my knowledge!
Dave Lyons Ummm...I _ordered_ it and received it when I saw it listed! It
_was_ there! If
Dave Lyons you think that interferes with my rights somehow, I wanna know
about it :-) It
Dave Lyons seems okay to me.
KSUTHER Well, then this is exactly the point we need to straighten out.
Thanks Dave.
AFL Jim Kathryn, I think A2-Central (Open-Apple) is going to start their
disk of the
AFL Jim month in February. They are planning on including shareware (with
permission)
AFL Jim as well as PD software.
KSUTHER That's great. As long as the authors come out ahead. I'm sure with
Tom they
Dave Lyons Hmmm...I'll have to send Tom a disk of all the lastest versions of
DAL S's stf.
KSUTHER will. That's the way to do it. :)
AFL Jim Oh yeah... that's A2-Central (tm) and TechAlliance (tm) :))
KSUTHER I'm sure we could work something out along that line. Plus it
would be great
KSUTHER to have a regular column devoted to Shareware.
KSUTHER Don't all volunteer to work in that arena at once.:)
AFL Jim Any assembly questions boefre we continue the general
discussion?
AFA Gary J Andy had a question a screen or two back about a debugger for a
128k
AFA Gary J environment. Did we answer that?
AndyWells Hi Floyd
AFL Jim Andy, the only debuggers I can think of are either 64K (old Apple
II) debuggers
Dave Lyons Anybody know much about Maxwell's Demon? Will that handle tracing
thorugh
AFL Jim or something for the IIGS.
AFL Floyd <Hi, Andy>
AFA Parik There is a card that will do hardware debugs... Gary told us about
it.
AFL Jim Oh yeah...
Dave Lyons progs that do 128K bank switching?
AFA Gary J Right, Parik. It ONLY works on //e type machines at the present
:(
AndyWells I have Bugbyter, the one that runs 65C02 code, but I need more
than that..
AFA Parik Did they ever make the GS version?
AFA Gary J I think it still has problems (the IIGS version, that is. Last I
heard)
AndyWells It can handle aux page 0/ram card area switching up to a point,
but I need
AndyWells something that will handle full bank switching, and haven't found
anything so
AndyWells far..
AFA Parik Hi Shadow
AndyWells I haven't gone far enough to write my own debugger, but I'd bet
that if I had
SHADOW52 hi
AFL Jim Andy, I think a hardware debugger is about all that could handle
all the bank
AndyWells the source for bugbyter, I'd be able to modify it..
AFL Jim switching on the IIe. That
AFL Jim That's what Quantum used to write this software.
AFA Gary J Or...develop on a IIGS for //e's.
AndyWells Are there any hardware debuggers out there though? I haven't seen
any..
AFA Gary J There is supposed to be one from a company called ProDev, but I'm
not even
AndyWells I do not have a GS, and I haven't seen a complete debugger for it
either..
AFA Gary J sure if it is final for the //e machines. They're supposed to
have a IIGS
AFA Gary J version too, but have run into problems. I've been meaning to
follow up on
AFA Gary J it. I'll check into it again.
AndyWells Any info I can get will be appreciated..
AndyWells I have run into problems debugging MultiPro, and have a real need
for something
AFL Jim Any other questions? Comments? Suggestions?
AndyWells to get me going again...
AndyWells I missed that worm...
AFL Jim It was on the Apple Cafe, Andy
AndyWells Ok.. Thanks..
AFL Jim Kathryn, what's coming up in Call-APPLE?
AndyWells Well, looks like I'm out of luck here...
AFL Jim Gary, what's ProDev's address and phone number?
AFL Jim Oops, Andy left
AFL Jim Maybe you can EMail it to him and tell him to ask Morgan Davis
about it since
AFL Jim Morgan was playing with one.
AFL Jim and... Gary left too :)
AFA Gary J Whew. Made it back.
AFL Jim Welcome back, Gary. We're just sitting here.
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Jim If you guys don't start typing.... well I'll think of something.
Dave Lyons Well, if you don't have anything better to do, you can all pat me
on the back
Dave Lyons for passing Diff E.Q. :)
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Floyd Way to go Dave! ;)
AFL Jim Oh yeah, congratulations on graduating, Dave!
DwightW1 I HAVE A QUESTION.....
AFA Parik ***Pat***
KSUTHER We've got a follow up article on GS/OS. More BASIC coverage. CD
ROM...
AFL Jim GA Dwight
AFA Gary J <pat><pat>
DwightW1 where is the 11/22 assembly language log?
DwightW1 .... i have yet to find it
Dave Lyons {stagger} (Not quite so hard, guys... :-)
AFL Jim 11/22... ahh on disk somewhere around here.
AFL Jim That's one I need to upload.
AFL Jim hold on and I'll EMail a copy to you.
DwightW1 thanks a million!