LAVITSKY@RUTGERS.ARPA (10/24/83)
Hi, Well, I am finally in the market for a 1541 disk drive...only trouble is I can't find one !!! Has anyone heard any news of any problems Commodore may be having with the 1541 or with getting the newer units out to the market??? So far I have gotten only one response about assembler/editors for the C64 and none about 80 column boards...I know there are more of you out there using assembler packages on your computers... C'mon guys be heard let me know what you think of your assembler/editor or 80 column board If I get responses I will post a summary... Eric -------
LAVITSKY@RU-BLUE.ARPA (11/02/83)
Hi, Well, I did receive a few responses ... I'm still not sure which one I will buy, but it seems that just as with their hardware, for the price Commodores' software is pretty hard to beat... Eric <LAVITSKY@RUTGERS> -------------------------- I have been using the commodore's editor for about three months. I work quite well and has macros. The things it does not have that I would have liked are: conditional assembly relocatable object code and better control of output. All in all I am very happy with it for the price I paid $49 for mine back before price cuts. I have seen it at 'toys R us' for >$20. For the price it is very good. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have used the Commodore assembler package since my early PET days. The editor is a line editor but it does the job. The assembler uses standard neumonics and they have added macro's on the C64 version. There is a debug package and absolute loader that also comes along with the package. The debug package (EXTRAMON, I think) can disassemble, breakpoint, and trace. The best thing about the package on the C64 is the price (under $20). For some reason I still seem to edit and assemble on my PET. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- I haven't used assembers myself, but several of the guys here who do seem to be sold on the Develope-64. One of it's strong points is that it allows the inclusion of remarks within the code. That seems to be a feature not readily found on many of the assemblers available for the 64. Also, it costs in the neighborhood of $50. Hope this helps. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- (and from the author of PAL:) I'm the author of PAL, so I won't give you much comment since you will expect it to be biased. I don't think PAL is best for everything, since it is designed for small jobs, which is 98% of the programming Commodore 64 users are doing. I myself use it for big programs too, but I know how to get the most out of it, and some of the things I do are not obvious. (It assembles itself, and my video games which are over 8K in size) PAL does seem to be the fastest. A lot faster than Commodore. I have never made extensive use of MAE. I am interested in people's comments, of course. Please send 'em on to me. Thanks. Brad ;<allegra!watmath!bstempleton@Berkely> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (I managed to elicit further response from him:) Well, the best features are speed, convenience and ease of learning for a beginner. Also size, but that's not important anymore (it used to be on the PETS. The program is only 4k. It stays memory resident which really helps) It has just about everything except macros, since it is only 4k. you can load and save symbol table files, which helps a lot. There is a complete expression evaluator with +, -, *, &, or, xor, shift left and right and parentheses for changing binding. A version produces relocatable modules and there is a loader you can stick with them. Operands in decimal hex, binary, ascii, program counter or symbols. 8 char names. MOS standard syntax. Conditional assembly. Ability to produce combined BASIC/machine language programs where the basic programs say sys"assembler expression" and it gets converted in the output file to the right decimal number (very good for general use and beginners) No editor to learn, uses same environment as basic (this is a disadvantage to some degree, of course, but most people like it since you sit in the same environment all the time.) Works entirely to ram if you like so you don't need a disk, but it can use it. I think I have a file with some more in it. Let's see. PAL is a new program for the Commodore 64 that allows you to easily write programs in machine language. With PAL, you can type in machine language programs in a symbolic form, and quickly assemble them into real machine language for the computer to run. It was the first, and is still the fastest and most easy to use assembler for your Commdore 64. With PAL, you type your assembler program in with the standard Basic program editor that is well known to all Commodore 64 users. There is no change of environment and there are no new tricks to learn. Tools like POWER can be used to help in this task if desired. PAL can work entirely from memory, taking a "source" program from RAM and assembling it into a running program in another area of RAM. These two abilities allow PAL to be used with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of speed. Although PAL is fast and compact, it also is loaded with big assembler features, including: o Relocatable output with relocating loader o Conditional assembly o Loading and saving symbol tables from disk. o User customization of output, pseudo-ops and expressions o File chaining for large programs You can express your values to PAL in all kinds of handy ways. Expressions can be highly complex, including parentheses. There are 7 different operators, and values can be given in decimal, hexadecimal, binary and several other methods. Symbols can be up to 8 characters long. One of the best features of PAL for the 64 is the ability to produce programs that are a combination of Basic and machine language. With PAL, you can write a Basic program that calls machine language routines by their symbolic name, and PAL will figure out the addresses for you, creating a program that can be LOADed and RUN. This is especially good for beginners who wish to start with Basic and move slowly to machine language, letting PAL take care of the nitty-gritty. There's lots more to PAL including a complete manual, and of course, the full support of Pro-Line Software. See your nearest dealer for complete details. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------