mirror of https://github.com/uffejakobsen/acme.git
183 lines
7.7 KiB
Plaintext
183 lines
7.7 KiB
Plaintext
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ACME
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...the ACME Crossassembler for Multiple Environments
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- free software -
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(C) 1998-2020 Marco Baye
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Section: Copyright
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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ACME - a crossassembler for producing 6502/65c02/65816 code.
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Copyright (C) 1998-2020 Marco Baye
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The ACME icon was designed by Wanja "Brix" Gayk
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This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
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it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
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the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
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your option) any later version.
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This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
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WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
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MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
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General Public License for more details.
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You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
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along with this program; if not, write to the
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Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330,
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Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Section: Introduction
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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ACME is a crossassembler for the 65xx range of processors. It knows
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about the standard 6502, the 65c02 and the 65816. It also supports
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the undocumented ("illegal") opcodes of the NMOS versions of the 6502,
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like the 6510 variant that is used in the Commodore C=64, and it also
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supports extensions to the intruction set done by other parties.
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This text and the other files in the same directory only describe the
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basic functions independent of the platform used. There should be
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another help file in this archive that outlines the features specific
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to your platform.
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The files in the docs directory and what they contain:
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65816.txt Stuff specific to the 65816 processor
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AddrModes.txt How to choose non-standard addressing modes
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AllPOs.txt Lists ACME's pseudo opcodes. Use as a reference.
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Changes.txt The change log
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COPYING Version 2 of the GNU General Public License
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Errors.txt Lists ACME's error messages and what they mean.
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Example.txt Information on how to assemble the example sources.
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Floats.txt About the support for floating-point values
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Help.txt ...is this text.
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Illegals.txt Support for undocumented opcodes
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Lib.txt Information about the library
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QuickRef.txt All the basic stuff about ACME <- START HERE!
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Source.txt How to compile ACME
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Upgrade.txt Incompatibilities to earlier versions
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cputypes/ Instruction sets of target CPUs
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IMPORTANT: If you upgrade from an earlier version of ACME, don't
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forget to read the files "Changes.txt" and "Upgrade.txt". Adding new
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features can not always be done in a 100% compatible way, so newer
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versions may behave slightly differently. To solve this problem, the
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"--dialect" CLI switch can be used.
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If you want to start using ACME right away, read the file
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"QuickRef.txt", it contains the main help text.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Section: What it can and does
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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ACME is a crossassembler.
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ACME can produce code for the 6502, 65c02 and 65816 processors.
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It does this *fast*.
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It can produce at most 64 KBytes of code.
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You can use global labels, local labels and anonymous labels.
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It is fast.
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You can use global and local macros.
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You can use conditional assembly.
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You can use looping assembly.
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You can include other source files.
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You can include binary files (either whole or parts) directly into the
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output.
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You can use offset assembly (code that is designed to run at a
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different address).
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It is fast.
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ACME's maths parser uses operator priorities, so 1+2*3 will correctly
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give 7 (unlike some other free assemblers that give 9 instead).
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ACME's maths parser has no problems concerning parentheses and
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indirect addressing modes.
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ACME's maths parser knows a shit load of different operations.
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ACME supports both integer and floating point maths operations.
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In addition to numbers, symbols can also hold strings or lists.
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You can dump the global symbols into a file.
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ACME supports a library of commonly used macros and symbols.
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It always takes as many passes as are needed.
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ACME exists on several platforms, meaning you can easily exchange your
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sources with other people (preferring other OSes).
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ACME can convert its strings to PetSCII and screen code (Okay, this is
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C64-specific).
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ACME has a rudimentary type checking system to catch errors like
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missing '#' characters.
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Did I mention that it is fast?
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Section: What it can't and doesn't
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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ACME cannot transfer data to a C64 or another computer.
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ACME does not produce ".o65"-format linkable object files.
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ACME cannot produce more than 64 KB (would be useful for the 65816).
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ACME cannot disassemble or relocate given code files.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Section: Platform independence
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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ACME was initially developed under RISC OS. Currently there are
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platform-specific versions available for AmigaOS, DOS, Linux, Windows
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and RISC OS. The Linux sources should be ready to compile on most
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other UNIX-like systems as well. In the future there will hopefully
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also be a version that runs on the C64/128.
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Though the source code does not exactly look like it *g*, ACME was
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written with portability in mind: Some of its limitations were
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included on purpose, just to allow a C64/128 version. To successfully
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assemble multi-file source codes from other platforms, the file names
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have to be altered as little as possible. Please name all your files
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that may be distributed in a sensible way, for example by limiting
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their file names to 8+3 format. I really hate this stupid will-it-
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ever-die DOS convention, but using it is the only way to ensure
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portability of files.
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Please use ".a" as the file name extension of ACME source code files.
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All file names used inside source code files have to be given in UNIX
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style, ACME will convert them to the current host platform style if
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needed.
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There should be no problems concerning newline characters, ACME was
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designed to cope with CR, LF and CRLF.
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A minor problem is the different character tables used on different
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systems. As all predefined ACME keywords only use 7-bit ASCII, the
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assembler will work on any system that uses a superset of this
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character table: UTF-8, ANSI, ISO 8859, etc.
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Symbol names can contain top-bit-set characters - these may look
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strange if the sources are edited on a different platform, but ACME
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will still work.
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If you want to port ACME to another platform, please inform me so that
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I can add your version to the ones already present on the ACME
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homepage. As the sources are released under the GNU General Public
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License, you are not forced to do this; but it would help to make ACME
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available to other users.
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The same goes for any changes or enhancements to the sources: Please
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send me a copy so that the changes can be incorporated into the next
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"official" release on the ACME home page.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Section: Contacting the author
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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The newest version of ACME can be found at the ACME homepage:
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http://sourceforge.net/p/acme-crossass/
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If you want to report a bug or make a suggestion, then simply send
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me an email:
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mailto:marco@baye.de
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