On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 8:18 PM, Adam Michlin via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
On 1/17/2017 7:10 PM, Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
I figure it's smart to stick with the mini-assembler until I learn a few things before moving to a full-fledged assembler like Merlin.
VCFed owns a few Laser 128s. Ian explained to me that the 128 is basically a //c with an expansion card slot. That may be good for me, ** if it has the older version of the mini-assembler **, because I have limited desk space and the small system is easier to bring to events. I will test our 128s this weekend -- step one, do any of them work, and step two, which version of the mini assembler. (Or can someone who has a Laser 128 test this for me sooner? Just see if it takes the F666G or ! to enter the mini assembler, then report back.)
The mini-assembler requires much more advanced knowledge than a macro assembler. The macro assembler will do a lot of the low level work for you without having to understand things like 2s complement notation, relative branches versus absolute jumps, and a bunch of other stuff.
Take a look at:
This "HELLO, WORLD" program is much harder to code with the mini-assembler.
Mini refers to small and barebones (thus requiring some serious advanced knowledge about how things works). Macro refers to something entirely different:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language#Macros
Good luck!
-Adam
yes but that's the orignal method of learning assembly, before progressing into macro assemblers, it's old-school and I think it's worth knowing the fundamentals , it makes you have a deeper understanding of the machine language , Now they had cross-assemblers too for a very long time, look at how MITs Altair Basic was written, an 8080 "cross" assembler on a pdp-10 The cross is in quotes because they didn't really write code to convert 8080 opcodes, But rather made use of unused opcodes from the PDP-10, Then wrote Trap code for each unused opcode, so that code would then emulate the 8080 opcodes, I though it was really neat in the manner they took. Dan