will (11/28/82)
First, can anyone out there recommend a good, low-priced assembler for the 8K ROM Sinclairs? How about the one by Bug-Byte sold by Gladstone for $10? Is it any good? Second, does anyone out there have an unusually creative mind that has some nifty ideas for an Adventure? I'm creating one now, and the only thing I'm short of is that essential part of a good adventure: creativity+humor. Oh, and also, has anyone out there ever tried putting something in the 'Resources' column in Sync? Does it get results? Is it better just to sell them a program? And one more thing: who out there (if anyone) has tried the Memotech printer interface? Is it reliable? And lastly and possible most importantly, can anyone reccommend a good, low-priced printer, that can handle 8-1/2 by 11" sheets, or 9-1/2 by 11" perforated rolls? I'm trying to piece together a system with my ZX81 so I can forget about those obsolete things...uh...oh, yeah--typewriters. Thankee much, Will Doolittle U. C. San Diego
schwager (12/05/82)
#R:sdchema:-30200:uiucdcs:10500009:000:1078
uiucdcs!schwager Dec 4 23:41:00 1982
I have not as yet tried any ZX-81 assemblers, but I should know if
the one made by "Artic" is any good after Christmas (it's on my list).
It sounds better than the one by Bug-Byte, but it's also $5 more.
I think the extra expense may be worth it. The Bug-Byte assembler
has the z-80 mnemonics written into REM statements (as you probably know), but I dont think the Artic's assembler does. The Bug-Byte occupies
5k, the Artic 7k. Godbout sells the Artic assembler and a monitor
and disassembler by the same company ("ZBUG, also $14.95). Here's what
the Godbout (ooops... I mean Gladstone- also above where I said Godbout)
ZX-81 catalog says about the Artic "ZX ASSEMBLER":
"This Machine Code program occupies 7k of memory and locates
itself at the top of memory. The program is a full Editor/
Assembler and Monitor. Labels may be used instead of any
string. The features include Line Insertion/Delete, Insert
Characters, Auto Repeat on all keys. The monitor has features
to inspect memory, registers, and run macine code programs."
Hope this helps. dce (12/06/82)
If Artic has found a way to load machine language from cassettes without putting them in REM statements, they have found something big. I don't see any other way to do it. The ZX81 tape loader checks the input for syntax and doesn't load if the program is not written in syntactically correct ZX81 BASIC (the editor wont let you enter incorrect statements), so it would seem that this assembler must have it's own built-in tape I/O routines so that you have to load in the assembler first, and then your program.