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README.1st
This is the readme for xa, a cross-assembler for the 6502 and 65816 CPUs (and derivatives). xa is a small, fast, portable two-pass assembler that compiles under most ANSI C compilers. It is distributed under the GNU Public License (see COPYING). The current version is 2.4.1, a bug fix for 2.4.0, the first major release in years. It builds upon the improvements in 2.3.x and its unified 6502/65816 assembler core by adding listing capability, greater flexibility with relocatable objects, and better cross-compatibility with other popular cross-assemblers (notably ca65) because once you use xa, you'll want to keep on using it. :) Certain long-deprecated options and non-standard syntaxes have also been removed in this release, so it is possible some very old code may not assemble without errors. These changes have been a long time coming and we gave lots of warnings, so if you require these features and cannot change your code to work without them, you must use xa 2.3.14. Fortunately, most code should continue to work just fine and the test suite is even bigger to catch these sorts of regressions. To install on a generic Unixy thing, you should be able to just type % make # to build the executable, and if it works ... % make test # if you have Perl, make and prerequisites, otherwise % make install # to install man pages and binaries into the system This will create xa along with its various support utilities. Try assembling the cpk depacker in examples/ as a test. xa also comes with uncpk (a program for generating cpk archives) and printcbm (a program for listing Commodore BASIC test, now deprecated as of 2.4) and file65, ldo65 and reloc65 for displaying, linking and relocating o65 files in Andre's relocatable format. Don't forget the man pages in man/. Install these into your MANPATH at your leisure, or read them with nroff -man (and/or groff -man). xa is no longer broadly supported outside of Unix due to my inability to test it, but has nothing that should impair it from compiling elsewhere. To wit, DOS compilation is still supported with the GO32 package. You should just be able to type C:\> make dos In addition, there are compatibility updates to allow it to compile under Microsoft Visual Studio and mingw. It should compile under VS2005 as written; look in the vstudio directory for solution and project files provided by Fabian Nunez. For mingw, use make mingw (but do it from within MSYS2). Similarly, Amiga and Atari ST compilation should still also function with their particular compatible packages. xa has a companion disassembler, the dxa package. dxa is not included in the standard xa distribution, but can be downloaded from the xa home page at http://www.floodgap.com/retrotech/xa/ Please check by periodically for the latest version of both packages. xa was originally written and maintained by Andre Fachat. The current version is maintained by Cameron Kaiser. Please send me your comments at ckaiser@floodgap.com -- Andre's original readme follows and applies generally to the present version. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- XA is a 6502 cross compiler: - under GNU public license - can produce _relocatable_ binaries - The full fileformat description and 6502 file loader included. - also included relocation and info utilites, as well as linker - for any ANSI-C compliant computer (only utilities need 'stat' call for file size). - fast by hashtables - Rockwell CMOS opcodes - running under DOS and any ANSI C system (Unix, Amiga, Atari ST) I developed this cross assembler for the 6502 CPU family quite some time ago on my Atari ST. The assembler has successfully been ported to Amiga and Unix computer (ported? just compiled... :-) Lately I came across the problem to need relocatable 6502 binary files, so I revised the assembler from version 2.0.7 to 2.1.0, adding a (admittedly proprietary) 6502 relocatable binary format. But there are not many other formats around and they didn't fit my needs. I have developed this format myself and it is under the GNU public license. With version 2.1.1 the 'official' version of the fileformat is supported. To compile it, just type "make" (if you have the GNU gcc. If not, edit the Makefile for the compiler options). This produces "xa", the cross assembler; "uncpk", a small packing utility (where the C64 counterpart is in the examples subdirectory), "printcbm", that lists C64 BASIC files and 'file65' that prints some information about o65 files. The "loader" in the loader subdirectory is a basic 6502 implementation of a relocating binary loader. "file65" prints file information on 'o65' relocatable files. "reloc65" can relocate 'o65' files. If you want to use it under DOS, you have to have the GO32 DOS crosscompiling tools to compile. Then just type "make dos" and you'll end up with the appropriate DOS binaries. This has been tested only under i386 Linux, however. Another archive with the DOS binaries included is provided. One problem on the Atari was it's broken "malloc". Therefore I used to alloc everything in one chunk and divide the memory by hand. So everything was kind of statically allocated. This is almost gone now. Only the temporary storage between pass1 and pass2 and the preprocessor are still allocated in one chunk (size definitions in xah.h). The rest is allocated as needed. The docs are in the 'doc' subdir. There also is a description of the 6502 relocatable binary format. If you think some things could be expressed in a better way, feel free and mail me to improve my english ;-) [ The documentation is now maintained in man(1) format in man/ . -- CK ] Andre