75 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
75 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
<preface>
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<title>Preface</title>
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<para>
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The Ophis project started on a lark back in 2001. My graduate
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studies required me to learn Perl and Python, and I'd been playing
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around with Commodore 64 emulators in my spare time, so I decided
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to learn both languages by writing a simple cross-assembler for
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the 6502 chip the C-64 used in both.
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</para>
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<para>
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The Perl version was quickly abandoned, but the Python one slowly
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grew in scope and power over the years, and by 2005 was a very
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powerful, flexible macro assembler that saw more use than I'd
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expect. In 2007 I finally got around to implementing the last few
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features I really wanted and polishing it up for general release.
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</para>
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<para>
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Part of that process has been formatting the various little
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tutorials and references I'd created into a single, unified
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document—the one you are now reading.
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</para>
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<section>
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<title>Why <quote>Ophis</quote>?</title>
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<para>
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It's actually a kind of a horrific pun. See, I was using Python
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at the time, and one of the things I had been hoping to do with
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the assembler was to produce working Apple II
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programs. <quote>Ophis</quote> is Greek
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for <quote>snake</quote>, and a number of traditions also use it
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as the actual <emphasis>name</emphasis> of the serpent in the
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Garden of Eden. So, Pythons, snakes, and stories involving
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really old Apples all combined to name the assembler.
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</para>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>Getting a copy of Ophis</title>
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<para>
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If you're reading this as part of the Ophis install, you clearly
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already have it. If not, as of this writing the homepage for
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the Ophis assembler
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is <ulink url="http://hkn.eecs.berkeley.edu/~mcmartin/ophis/"></ulink>. If
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this is out-of-date, a Web search on <quote>Ophis 6502
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assembler</quote> (without the quotation marks) should yield its
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page.
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</para>
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<para>
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Ophis is written entirely in Python and packaged using the
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distutils. The default installation script on Unix and Mac OS X
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systems should put the files where they need to go. If you are
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running it locally, you will need to install
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the <literal>Ophis</literal> package somewhere in your Python
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package path, and then put the <command>ophis</command> script
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somewhere in your path.
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</para>
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<para>
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Windows users that have Python installed can use the same source
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distributions that the other operating systems
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use; <command>ophis.bat</command> will arrange the environment
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variables accordingly and invoke the main script.
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</para>
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<para>
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If you are on Windows and do not have Python installed, a
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prepackaged system made with <command>py2exe</command> is also
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available. The default Windows installer will use this. In
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this case, all you need to do is
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have <command>ophis.exe</command> in your path.
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</para>
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</section>
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</preface>
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