WikiTI - User contributions [en]

Programming under Unix-like operating systems

2006-08-20T18:11:29Z

Mbruno: /* Assembling */

Here are the different tools at your disposal:

= General Overviews =

==Emulators==
* TilEm [http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_tilem/]
* VTI (with Wine)

==Syntax highlighting==
Several editors have native or extensional support for editing Z80 assembly code with syntax highlighting:
* Kwrite and Kate can be made to syntax-highlight Z80 assembly with [http://guillaume.h.ifrance.com/ti83/z80assembler.xml the appropriate definition file]. The file can be placed in /usr/share/apps/katepart/syntax to install it.
* SciTE and Emacs both have native modes for assembly code. For Emacs, one must make sure to turn on Font Lock mode as well.
* The [http://www.revsoft.org/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=25 Z80 Assembly IDE] has simple syntax highlighting built-in.
* Users of Vim and WLA DX can use [http://sigma.unitedti.org/files/misc/z80.vim.bz2 this syntax file].

== Assembling ==

=== SPASM ===

'''Author''': Spencer Putt

'''Home Page''': [http://www.revsoft.org/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=21 http://www.revsoft.org/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=21]

SPASM is a portable Z80 assembler released under the GPL. Its distinguishing features are extremely fast assembly and powerful macro support. The output is only available in binary form, however with the use of [http://www.revsoft.org/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=23 Wabbitsign], written by James Montelongo and Spencer Putt, it can easily be converted to any desired program type.

assembler foo.asm foo.bin
wabbit foo.bin foo.8xp

=== tpasm ===

'''Author''': Todd Squires

'''Home page''': [http://www.sqrt.com/ http://www.sqrt.com/]

tpasm is a Free (GPL) assembler which supports the Z80 as well as the 6805, 6809, 68HC11, 6502, Sunplus, 8051, PIC, and AVR. It uses syntax very similar to ZMASM.

tpasm 1.2 does not support binary file output, but you can use ''objcopy'' (from the GNU binutils package) to convert its Intel Hex output into binary; e.g.

tpasm foo.asm -o intel foo.hex -l foo.lst
objcopy -I ihex foo.hex -O binary foo.bin

=== ASxxxx ===

'''Author''': Alan R. Baldwin

'''Home page''': [http://shop-pdp.kent.edu/ashtml/asxxxx.htm http://shop-pdp.kent.edu/ashtml/asxxxx.htm]

ASxxxx is a freeware assembler which supports the Z80 along with a large variety of other processors. It more closely resembles a modern PC assembler than a typical Z80 assembler, as it assembles each file into a relocatable object format which can then be linked with other files to produce the complete program. The linking is done by a separate program called ASlink (included with the package.)

To assemble and link a simple program you might do something like

asz80 -plogff foo.asm
aslink -u -b _CODE=0x9D95 -i foo.ihx foo.rel
objcopy -I ihex foo.ihx -O binary foo.bin

Note that the syntax is rather different from that of most Z80 assemblers. The important differences are
* Immediate values are marked with #.
* Indexed memory access is written as N(ix) rather than (ix+N).
* Constants are written differently: 0xAA, 0hAA, or $$AA for hexadecimal; 0o252, 0q252, or $&252 for octal; 0b10101010 or $%10101010 for binary.

For example,
ld hl,#str_hello
add a,3(ix)
xor #0x0f

There is also a modified version of ASxxxx distributed with the [http://sdcc.sf.net/ Small Device C Compiler]. This version is, if anything, more confusing to use due to the poorly-documented changes made by the SDCC team.

=== TASM ===

'''Author''': Thomas N. Anderson

'''Home page''': [http://home.comcast.net/~tasm/ http://home.comcast.net/~tasm/]

TASM is a shareware assembler which also supports a variety of processors.

There are several ways that you can use tasm under Linux:
* The TASM 3.1 for Linux shareware release is still in the wild. To use this you will need to enable "a.out" support in your kernel (it may be available as the module ''binfmt_aout''.) You will also need to obtain the ancient Linux libc version 4 (''not'' glibc) which can be found [http://ftp.linux.org.uk/pub/linux/libc/ here].
* You can use TASM 3.2 for Windows with [http://www.winehq.com Wine].
* You can pay the $40 and compile it yourself on the platform of your choice.

=== Brass ===
'''Author''': benryves

'''Home page''': [http://benryves.com/bin/brass/ http://benryves.com/bin/brass/]

Brass runs under Linux thanks to Mono.

=== Zasm ===
'''Author''': Steven Deprez

'''Home page''': [http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_zasm/index.html http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_zasm/index.html]

Zasm is an open source assembler that is almost fully compatible with Tasm and ZDS.

=== WLA DX ===
'''Author''': Ville Helin

'''Home page''': [http://users.tkk.fi/~vhelin/wla.html http://users.tkk.fi/~vhelin/wla.html]

WLA DX is another open-source (GNU GPL) cross-assembler with a primary focus on targeting video game consoles. It is a high-powered assembler with a wide variety of features such as, e.g. separate compilation, POSIX-like file I/O, and code sectioning. However it is cumbersome when assembling small projects, and semantics are unorthodox compared to other assemblers. (~ is the XOR operator, macro arguments are passed by value, etc.) Furthermore, development appears to have ceased since January 2006.

WLA DX has had an influence in the development of Brass.

=== Pasmo ===
'''Author''': Julián Albo

'''Home page''': [http://www.arrakis.es/~ninsesabe/pasmo/ http://www.arrakis.es/~ninsesabe/pasmo/]

Pasmo is another standalone Z80 cross-assembler with basic macro support, but without the ability to generate
relocatable object files. It is licensed under the GNU GPL, and exists as the package <tt>pasmo</tt> in the Debian pool.

=== z80asm ===
'''Author''': Bas Wijnen

'''Home page''': [http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/z80asm/ http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/z80asm/]

z80asm is a standalone Z80 cross-assembler similar in nature to Pasmo, in that it has macro support but cannot generate relocatable object files. It too is licensed under the GNU GPL (version 2 or later), and exists as the package <tt>z80asm</tt> in the Debian pool.

=== GNU as ===
'''Author''': the GNU binutils team

'''Home page''': [http://www.gnu.org/software/binutils/ http://www.gnu.org/software/binutils/]

Starting from version 2.17, the GNU assembler, part of the binutils package, is capable of cross-assembling Z80 code when configured for it at compile-time, such as with <tt>--target=z80-unknown-coff</tt>. binutils includes a powerful assembler and linker both, along with various utilities for handling object files, such as objcopy and objdump; for Z80, COFF is used for relocatable objects, with raw binary and Intel hex formats also supported. While this is probably one of the more powerful tools in the list for Z80 development, it also requires more work to start with, as the traditional way to get a cross-assembling binutils is to compile it oneself. Being a GNU package, binutils is naturally licensed under the GNU GPL (version 2 or later). Prepackaged binary versions of binutils are very common, but usually do not have cross-assembling capability.

==Sending programs to the calc==
* TILP
* titranz : commandline tool, only works for TI-83/TI-83+

= FreeBSD =
Much of the aforementioned software should compile independently without problem or with minor tweaking under FreeBSD, but it is best to utilize the ports collection whenever possible. Unfortunately, the current state of calculator-related software in the FreeBSD Ports Collection is lacking in variety.

* Development
{| width="75%" class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|- align="left"
!Port !! Current Version !! Location
|-
|tpasm || 1.2_1 || /devel/tpasm
|-
|z80asm || 0.1_1 || /devel/z80-asm
|-
|TI-GCC || 0.96.b6_1 || /devel/tigcc
|-
|libticalcs || 4.5.9_1 || /devel/libticalcs
|-
|libtifiles || 0.6.5_1 || /devel/libtifiles
|}

* Communications
{| width="75%" class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|- align="left"
!Port !! Current Version !! Location
|-
|TiLP || 6.79_1 || /comms/tilp
|-
|libticables || 3.9.7_1 || /comms/libticables
|}

* Emulation
{| width="75%" class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|- align="left"
!Port !! Current Version !! Location
|-
| TIEmu 2 || 2.04 || /emulators/tiemu2
|}

= Other Unixes =

This section is a stub. Please add it it.

Programming under Unix-like operating systems

2006-08-20T18:10:31Z

Mbruno: /* Assembling */

Here are the different tools at your disposal:

= General Overviews =

==Emulators==
* TilEm [http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_tilem/]
* VTI (with Wine)

==Syntax highlighting==
Several editors have native or extensional support for editing Z80 assembly code with syntax highlighting:
* Kwrite and Kate can be made to syntax-highlight Z80 assembly with [http://guillaume.h.ifrance.com/ti83/z80assembler.xml the appropriate definition file]. The file can be placed in /usr/share/apps/katepart/syntax to install it.
* SciTE and Emacs both have native modes for assembly code. For Emacs, one must make sure to turn on Font Lock mode as well.
* The [http://www.revsoft.org/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=25 Z80 Assembly IDE] has simple syntax highlighting built-in.
* Users of Vim and WLA DX can use [http://sigma.unitedti.org/files/misc/z80.vim.bz2 this syntax file].

== Assembling ==

=== SPASM ===

'''Author''': Spencer Putt

'''Home Page''': [http://www.revsoft.org/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=21 http://www.revsoft.org/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=21]

SPASM is a portable Z80 assembler released under the GPL. Its distinguishing features are extremely fast assembly and powerful macro support. The output is only available in binary form, however with the use of [http://www.revsoft.org/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=23 Wabbitsign], written by James Montelongo and Spencer Putt, it can easily be converted to any desired program type.

assembler foo.asm foo.bin
wabbit foo.bin foo.8xp

=== tpasm ===

'''Author''': Todd Squires

'''Home page''': [http://www.sqrt.com/ http://www.sqrt.com/]

tpasm is a Free (GPL) assembler which supports the Z80 as well as the 6805, 6809, 68HC11, 6502, Sunplus, 8051, PIC, and AVR. It uses syntax very similar to ZMASM.

tpasm 1.2 does not support binary file output, but you can use ''objcopy'' (from the GNU binutils package) to convert its Intel Hex output into binary; e.g.

tpasm foo.asm -o intel foo.hex -l foo.lst
objcopy -I ihex foo.hex -O binary foo.bin

=== ASxxxx ===

'''Author''': Alan R. Baldwin

'''Home page''': [http://shop-pdp.kent.edu/ashtml/asxxxx.htm http://shop-pdp.kent.edu/ashtml/asxxxx.htm]

ASxxxx is a freeware assembler which supports the Z80 along with a large variety of other processors. It more closely resembles a modern PC assembler than a typical Z80 assembler, as it assembles each file into a relocatable object format which can then be linked with other files to produce the complete program. The linking is done by a separate program called ASlink (included with the package.)

To assemble and link a simple program you might do something like

asz80 -plogff foo.asm
aslink -u -b _CODE=0x9D95 -i foo.ihx foo.rel
objcopy -I ihex foo.ihx -O binary foo.bin

Note that the syntax is rather different from that of most Z80 assemblers. The important differences are
* Immediate values are marked with #.
* Indexed memory access is written as N(ix) rather than (ix+N).
* Constants are written differently: 0xAA, 0hAA, or $$AA for hexadecimal; 0o252, 0q252, or $&252 for octal; 0b10101010 or $%10101010 for binary.

For example,
ld hl,#str_hello
add a,3(ix)
xor #0x0f

There is also a modified version of ASxxxx distributed with the [http://sdcc.sf.net/ Small Device C Compiler]. This version is, if anything, more confusing to use due to the poorly-documented changes made by the SDCC team.

=== TASM ===

'''Author''': Thomas N. Anderson

'''Home page''': [http://home.comcast.net/~tasm/ http://home.comcast.net/~tasm/]

TASM is a shareware assembler which also supports a variety of processors.

There are several ways that you can use tasm under Linux:
* The TASM 3.1 for Linux shareware release is still in the wild. To use this you will need to enable "a.out" support in your kernel (it may be available as the module ''binfmt_aout''.) You will also need to obtain the ancient Linux libc version 4 (''not'' glibc) which can be found [http://ftp.linux.org.uk/pub/linux/libc/ here].
* You can use TASM 3.2 for Windows with [http://www.winehq.com Wine].
* You can pay the $40 and compile it yourself on the platform of your choice.

=== Brass ===
'''Author''': benryves

'''Home page''': [http://benryves.com/bin/brass/ http://benryves.com/bin/brass/]

Brass runs under Linux thanks to Mono.

=== Zasm ===
'''Author''': Steven Deprez

'''Home page''': [http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_zasm/index.html]

Zasm is an open source assembler that is almost fully compatible with Tasm and ZDS.

=== WLA DX ===
'''Author''': Ville Helin

'''Home page''': [http://users.tkk.fi/~vhelin/wla.html http://users.tkk.fi/~vhelin/wla.html]

WLA DX is another open-source (GNU GPL) cross-assembler with a primary focus on targeting video game consoles. It is a high-powered assembler with a wide variety of features such as, e.g. separate compilation, POSIX-like file I/O, and code sectioning. However it is cumbersome when assembling small projects, and semantics are unorthodox compared to other assemblers. (~ is the XOR operator, macro arguments are passed by value, etc.) Furthermore, development appears to have ceased since January 2006.

WLA DX has had an influence in the development of Brass.

=== Pasmo ===
'''Author''': Julián Albo

'''Home page''': [http://www.arrakis.es/~ninsesabe/pasmo/ http://www.arrakis.es/~ninsesabe/pasmo/]

Pasmo is another standalone Z80 cross-assembler with basic macro support, but without the ability to generate
relocatable object files. It is licensed under the GNU GPL, and exists as the package <tt>pasmo</tt> in the Debian pool.

=== z80asm ===
'''Author''': Bas Wijnen

'''Home page''': [http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/z80asm/ http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/z80asm/]

z80asm is a standalone Z80 cross-assembler similar in nature to Pasmo, in that it has macro support but cannot generate relocatable object files. It too is licensed under the GNU GPL (version 2 or later), and exists as the package <tt>z80asm</tt> in the Debian pool.

=== GNU as ===
'''Author''': the GNU binutils team

'''Home page''': [http://www.gnu.org/software/binutils/ http://www.gnu.org/software/binutils/]

Starting from version 2.17, the GNU assembler, part of the binutils package, is capable of cross-assembling Z80 code when configured for it at compile-time, such as with <tt>--target=z80-unknown-coff</tt>. binutils includes a powerful assembler and linker both, along with various utilities for handling object files, such as objcopy and objdump; for Z80, COFF is used for relocatable objects, with raw binary and Intel hex formats also supported. While this is probably one of the more powerful tools in the list for Z80 development, it also requires more work to start with, as the traditional way to get a cross-assembling binutils is to compile it oneself. Being a GNU package, binutils is naturally licensed under the GNU GPL (version 2 or later). Prepackaged binary versions of binutils are very common, but usually do not have cross-assembling capability.

==Sending programs to the calc==
* TILP
* titranz : commandline tool, only works for TI-83/TI-83+

= FreeBSD =
Much of the aforementioned software should compile independently without problem or with minor tweaking under FreeBSD, but it is best to utilize the ports collection whenever possible. Unfortunately, the current state of calculator-related software in the FreeBSD Ports Collection is lacking in variety.

* Development
{| width="75%" class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|- align="left"
!Port !! Current Version !! Location
|-
|tpasm || 1.2_1 || /devel/tpasm
|-
|z80asm || 0.1_1 || /devel/z80-asm
|-
|TI-GCC || 0.96.b6_1 || /devel/tigcc
|-
|libticalcs || 4.5.9_1 || /devel/libticalcs
|-
|libtifiles || 0.6.5_1 || /devel/libtifiles
|}

* Communications
{| width="75%" class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|- align="left"
!Port !! Current Version !! Location
|-
|TiLP || 6.79_1 || /comms/tilp
|-
|libticables || 3.9.7_1 || /comms/libticables
|}

* Emulation
{| width="75%" class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|- align="left"
!Port !! Current Version !! Location
|-
| TIEmu 2 || 2.04 || /emulators/tiemu2
|}

= Other Unixes =

This section is a stub. Please add it it.

Z80 Good Programming Practices

2006-07-16T19:11:04Z

Mbruno:

== Using IX ==

If you have objects represented by adjacent chunks of data in memory, you can use IX to easily manage them.

<table border="1" cellpadding="2">
<tr><th>Without</th><th>With</th></tr>
<tr>
<td>
<nowiki>
ld b,10
ld hl,SpritesData
DisplaySpritesLoop
ld b,(hl) ; coordx
inc hl
ld c,(hl) ; coordy
inc hl
ld d,(hl) ; first part of address
inc hl
ld e,(hl) ; end of address
inc hl
call DisplaySprite
djnz DisplaySpritesLoop
</nowiki>
</td>
<td>
<nowiki>
COORDX equ. 0
COORDY equ. 1
ADDR1 equ. 2
ADDR2 equ. 3

ld b,10
ld ix,SpritesData
DisplaySpritesLoop
ld b,(ix+COORDX)
ld c,(ix+COORDY)
ld d,(ix+ADDR1)
ld e,(ix+ADDR2)
call DisplaySprite
ld hl,4
add ix,hl
djnz DisplaySpritesLoop
</nowiki>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

Defining constants for the offsets of each field of your "objects" makes the code more understandable.

== Lookup table ==

If you have a place in your code where a value is tested to choose between a lot of things, like subroutines or data, it can be a good idea to use lookup tables instead of a series of tests. It makes the code more readable, concise and extensible.

<table border="1" cellpadding="2">
<tr><th>Without</th><th>With</th></tr>
<tr>
<td>
<nowiki>
ld a,(SpriteNumber)
cp 1
jp z,ChooseSprite1
cp 2
jp z,ChooseSprite2
cp 3
jp z,ChooseSprite3
cp 4
jp z,ChooseSprite4
...
ChooseSprite1
ld hl,Sprite1
jp DisplaySprite
ChooseSprite2
ld hl,Sprite2
jp DisplaySprite
ChooseSprite3
ld hl,Sprite3
jp DisplaySprite
ChooseSprite4
ld hl,Sprite4
jp DisplaySprite
...
DisplaySprite
ld bc,(coordinates)
call SpriteRoutine
</nowiki>
</td>
<td>
<nowiki>
ld a,(SpriteNumber)
add a,a ; a*2
ld h,O
ld l,a
ld de,SpriteAddressLUT
add hl,de
ld bc,(coordinates)
call SpriteRoutine
...
SpriteAddressLUT
.dw Sprite1
.dw Sprite2
.dw Sprite3
.dw Sprite4
</nowiki>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

And this one :
<table border="1" cellpadding="2">
<tr><th>Without</th><th>With</th></tr>
<tr>
<td>
<nowiki>
ld a,(MenuChoice)
cp 1
jp z,Choice1
cp 2
jp z,Choice2
cp 3
jp z,Choice3
cp 4
jp z,Choice4
...
</nowiki>
</td>
<td>

<nowiki>
ld a,(MenuChoice)
add a,a ; a*2
ld h,O
ld l,a
ld de,CodeBranchLUT
add hl,de
bcall(_LdHLInd)
jp (hl)
...
CodeBranchLUT
.dw Choice1
.dw Choice2
.dw Choice3
.dw Choice4
</nowiki>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
{{stub}}