esink@turia.dit.upm.es (04/09/91)
OK, this is my summary to my recent request for information on freely available assemblers for the 68000. Principal submitters of information were : From: it1@Ra.MsState.Edu (Tim Tsai) From: dm@itumic.Itumic.FI (Dick Mihalovsky) From: Robert Kelley <rjk@sequent.com> In addition, a gentleman at Motorola sent me an information file which appears at the end of this article. One person was kind enough to mail me the assembler which I understand originated from the Motorola BBS. Therefore, in total, the information I have regarding M68k assemblers : there are 4. 1. A68k, by Charlie Gibbs, for the Amiga. Copyrighted, available for non-commercial usage. Does not handle 68020/881/851. Available on a fish disk (don't know which one) and on a.cs.uiuc.edu. 2. GAS, by the FSF. Available all over the place, copyrighted, usage restrictions as per the GPL. 3. 68kasmsim, available from csl.csl.ncsu.edu by anon ftp. This is a 68k simulator and assembler written by students (I think) at ncsu. I have not run it. There appears to be a PC version on simtel20. The original runs under X. The software states that it is Public domain, and copyrighted, all rights reserved. I'll assume what the authors meant is "Copyrighted, all rights reserved except that of free distribution." 4. asm20, (or so I call it), which was mailed to me, and is apparently available on the Motorola BBS. To my knowledge it is not available for anon ftp. If someone is willing to make it so, please let me know and I will mail the source. This one handles 020/881/851 and the whole works. Appears to be really slick. It compiled very easily on my Sun 3. There is no copyright message, nor is there any message concerning public domain, usage restrictions, not even the author's name. It would therefore appear that the program is public domain. Does anyone have any information to the contrary ? Anyway, that's all I found out. Mail to me if there is any further information or if I have made any mistakes in this posting. Motorola information follows, cheers... From: michael@chg.mcd.mot.com (Michael Bodine) ------------------------- Subject: M68K macro assembler sources I end up sending this information out so frequently that i've put it into a standard letter. If you have further questions, feel free to contact me directly via email, usnail or telly. Motorola Semiconductor has free macroassemblers for the 680X, as well as for the 680X0 family uploadable from their Freeware bulletin board. It's accessible at 1200/2400 baud at (512) 891-FREE. It is often busy and not too infrequently down, so be ready to try often. There is a sysop who checks in at times, so if you can't find what you're looking for, leave a message and check back later. Remember, it's free software, no guarantees, altho bug reports are gratefully accepted. The following is from Motorola in Austin where the Freeware line is administered: > Freeware is the name of the BBS dedicated to support Motorola MPU's and >MCU's (controllers). "Freeware" is online 24 hours a day. The following >is a sample of the topics: > 8-bit MCUs. > 16/32-bit MPUs. > Evaluation Boards and modules. > Conferences/Interest Groups. > IBM-PC software tools (assemblers etc.) > Development Systems (HDS-200, HDS-300) > > To use: > 1) Set your system to 8-bit , no parity, 1 stop-bit. > 2) Dial 512-891-3733. The best, of course, would be the one WE have to offer! Seriously, it's a very good assembler with macro capabilities, which has been the standard since the inception of the 68000 supporting the standard syntax, ie. what's in the hardware reference manuals for the chips, and it has very few known bugs in it. Many software houses producing assemblers and compilers use it as the standard against which to compare their own product. Call your local Motorola Microcomputer, Computer Systems or Semiconductor sales office to find out about getting a copy. (If you don't know where your local office is, contact our marketing department at (602) 438-3500.) The only bad part (for you IBM PC and Mac and other PC-type users) about it is that it is intended for use on our System V/68 unix and VERSAdos platforms. However, source is available if you want to port it to another environment. We also sell the Absoft assembler for our systems. The Absoft assembler is a tricky little devil that takes all kinds of weird syntax in and tries to make sense of it before assembling it into 68000 family code. Like, you could feed it 8080 assembler and it would at least try to make 68K object out of it... It also will optimize your assembler -- dangerous! so you can turn that feature off. Motorola Semiconductor has a brochure called "The Source" (ask for BR506/D) which lists all sorts of third party software for the 68000 and 88000 processors. There are many vendors of cross-assemblers and compilers listed there, including those below. I make this distinction only because I have direct experience with the sources below and not necessarily all of the ones listed in The Source. The next tier of assemblers are all third party and available to run on a wide variety of machines. These are from Introl, Avocet, Language Resources and Relational Memory Systems. All are reliable, quality and have high customer satisfaction ratings from all of my customers. There are some cross-tools which are good from Boston Systems Office; only work on VAX/VMS. There are, of course, many other vendors of such software with widely varying prices and quality levels. Usually a scan through the back of Byte magazine will give you several names offering darn good prices. However, the vendors listed here provide professional service and quality software, and either i have personally used their stuff or some of my customers have. Good luck, and thanks for using Motorola! BSO RELMS 128 Technology Center POBox 6719 Waltham, Ma. 02254-9164 San Jose, Ca. 95150 (617) 894-7800 (800) 448-4880, (408) 265-5411 LRI Introl 4885 Riverbend Rd 647 W Virginia Boulder, Co 80301 Milwaukee, Wi 53204 (303) 449-6089 (414) 276-2937 Avocet Systems Absoft 120 Union St 2781 Bond St POBox 490 Auburn Hills, Mi 48057 Rockport, Me 04856 (313) 853-0050 (800) 448-8500, (207) 236-9055 Motorola MicroComputer Division Software Development Systems 2900 S Diablo Way 4248 Belle Aire Lane Tempe, Az 85282 Downers Grove, Il 60515 (602) 438-3500, (708) 448-7733 or local Motorola MCD/SPS Sales offices --- [ Michael Bodine, michael@chg.mcd.mot.com, Dial: (708) 576-7840, FAX: x8875 ] [ Motorola TSD; Loc IL38; 1100 Woodfield; Suite 334; Schaumburg, Il 60173 ] ------------------------- Eric W. Sink | Putting the phrase |All opinions Departamento de Telematica | "Frequently Asked" |are mine and Universidad Politecnica de Madrid| in your kill file is |not necessarily esink@turia.dit.upm.es | not recommended. |yours.