mirror of
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7d0dd140c3
Created a simple stylesheet, linked to it, and removed body color attributes defined there. This reduces repetition and separates style and presentation.
158 lines
8.5 KiB
HTML
158 lines
8.5 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
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"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
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<HTML>
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<HEAD>
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<TITLE>General Information</TITLE>
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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="./style.css">
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</HEAD>
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<BODY>
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<HR><CENTER>
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<TABLE BORDER=0 BGCOLOR="#000000" CELLPADDING=25>
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<TR>
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<TD><FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF"><H2>ASMotor General Information</H2></FONT></TD>
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</TR>
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</TABLE>
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</CENTER>
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<HR>
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<H2><CENTER>Table of Contents
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</CENTER></H2>
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<UL>
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<LI><A HREF="#BlahBlahBlah">BlahBlahBlah</A>
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<LI><A HREF="#Author">The Author</A>
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<LI><A HREF="#Introduction">Introduction</A>
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<LI><A HREF="#Installation">Installation</A>
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<LI><A HREF="#Documentation">The Documentation</A>
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<LI><A HREF="#History">History</A>
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</UL>
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<BR><HR><H3 id="BlahBlahBlah">BlahBlahBlah</H3>
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<P>The <B>ASMotor</B> package (<A HREF="asm.htm">xAsm</A>, <A HREF="link.htm">xLink</A>, <A HREF="fix.htm">RGBFix</A>, examples and <A HREF="#Documentation">documentation</A>) is freeware and distributed as is. The
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author retains his copyright and right to modify the specifications and operation of the software without notice.
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<P>In other words this means I encourage you to...
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<UL>
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<LI>use it for whatever purpose even professional work without me charging you a penny
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<LI>copy it to another person (wholly or in part, though I'm sure he'd appreciate the whole package) in
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whatever form you find suitable
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<LI>mass-distribute the <B>ASMotor</B> package if it is complete (<A HREF="asm.htm">xAsm</A>, <A HREF="link.htm">xLink</A>, <A HREF="fix.htm">RGBFix</A> and documentation).
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<LI>contact me if you have any problems
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</UL>
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<P>This also means you can't...
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<UL>
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<LI>blame me for loss of profit, data, sleep, food or other nasty things through the use or distribution of <B>ASMotor</B>. If
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you choose to use <B>ASMotor</B> you do so at your own risk.
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<LI>expect me to be able to help you should you have a problem related or not to <B>ASMotor</B>.
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</UL>
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<P>I am happy to say that xAsm and xLink use PMODE/W as DOS-extender for the MS-DOS port! This means fast assembling of your sourcecodes. A lot faster. PMODE/W is a drop-in replacement for the bulky DOS4GW. If you are a programmer you should check out <A HREF="http://www.di.net/pmw">http://www.di.net/pmw</A><BR>
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"PMODE/W is Copyright (c) 1994-1997, Charles Scheffold and Thomas Pytel. All rights reserved."<BR>
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<BR><HR><H3 id="Author">The Author</H3>
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<P>Any questions? Write me!<BR>
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<BR>
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Carsten Sorensen<BR>
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1 Spring Court<BR>
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Guildford<BR>
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Surrey GU2 6QW<BR>
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United Kingdom<BR>
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<BR>
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<h4 id="Email">e-mail:</h4>
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<A HREF="mailto:surfsmurf@matilde.demon.co.uk">surfsmurf@matilde.demon.co.uk</A> (private)<BR>
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<A HREF="mailto:csorensen@ea.com">csorensen@ea.com</A> (work)<BR>
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<BR>
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Get the latest version from my web page at <A HREF="http://www.matilde.demon.co.uk">http://www.matilde.demon.co.uk</A>
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<BR><HR><H3 id="Introduction">Introduction</H3>
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<P><B>ASMotor</B> is a package currently consisting of three programs (<A HREF="asm.htm">xAsm</A>, <A HREF="link.htm">xLink</A> and <A HREF="fix.htm">RGBFix</A>) originally designed for development on the Gameboy hand-held
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video-game console by Nintendo but recently it has moved towards being a target independent shell for making development of new
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assemblers for different processors easier.<BR>
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<A HREF="asm.htm">xAsm</A> is a decently fast assembler (up to <I>800000 lines/minute</I> (hrm well actually that's for 16384 lines of NOP's ;) on a P-120). It converts an assembler source into the <A HREF="rgb0.htm">RGB object-fileformat</A>.<BR>
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<A HREF="link.htm">xLink</A> is used to link multiple (one or more) object files together into one target file eg. a Gameboy ROM or Psion2 relocatable module.<BR>
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<A HREF="fix.htm">RGBFix</A> is used to apply some final cosmetic details to a Gameboy ROM-image.<BR>
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<P>This document does not try to teach you how to program in assembler, how to program a specifix processor or the Gameboy.
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It does just briefly explain the features of <A HREF="asm.htm">xAsm</A> and <A HREF="link.htm">xLink</A>. Sometimes I will assume that you have actually worked with assemblers before and that you are familiar with the target processor.
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<P>Why another assembler? There seems to be millions out there! This project started out as a Gameboy assembler because none of the available assemblers had the features I wanted. Now the reason is I want to make the most powerful assembler. Ever ;) And I want to be able to re-use it easily whenever I encounter a new system with another processor.
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Don't like it? Something you'd like to see added? <A HREF="#Email">Mail me</A> and I'll see what I can do.
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<P>The <A HREF="asm.htm">assembler</A> and <A HREF="link.htm">linker</A> are written entirely in ANSI C using Bison for the parser. I try to maintain two pre-compiled ports of <B>ASMotor</B>, one for the MS-DOS environment and one for Linux. Bison
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is a GNU tool (compiler-compiler) tailored to aid in the development of compilers which you will need if you want to compile it afresh.<BR>
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<BR><HR><H3 id="Installation">Installation</H3>
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<P>Anywhere on your HD will do. For maximum enjoyment I recommend adding the directory to your path.
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Alternatively you can run it from a floppy.<BR>
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<BR><HR><H3 id="Documentation">The Documentation</H3>
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<P>The documentation only comes in one flavour. HTML. This has several advantages for me
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<UL>
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<LI>It's a more "portable" format.
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<LI>Not everybody has the nice fonts I used in the Word file.
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<LI>Hypertext r00lz. (Typesetting for programmers ;)
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<LI>I can put it "as is" on <A HREF="http://www.matilde.demon.co.uk">my web page</A>.
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</UL>
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<BR><HR><H3 id="History">History</H3>
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<TABLE BORDER=1>
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<CAPTION><I>The history of ASMotor</I></CAPTION>
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<TR>
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<TD ALIGN="Center"><B><I>Version</I></B></TD>
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<TD ALIGN="Center"><I><B>Dated</B></I></TD>
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<TD><B><I>Release notes</I></B></TD>
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</TR>
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<TR>
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<TD ALIGN="Center">1.0</TD>
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<TD ALIGN="Center">03 July 1997</TD>
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<TD>First release</TD>
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</TR>
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<TR>
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<TD ALIGN="Center">1.01</TD>
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<TD ALIGN="Center">20 July 1997</TD>
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<TD><B>RGBDS fixes:</B><BR>
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RGBFix can now also truncate the ROM-images to a valid size.<BR>
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RGBAsm supports the LDD and LDI syntax plus [HLD] and [HLI]. LDH is
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synonymous with LDIO.<BR>
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Example filenames have been changed to adhere to Jeff Frohweins proposed
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standard.<BR>
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<B>General fixes:</B><BR>
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RGBLink knows about big and little endian. Plus it can do range checking
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on intermediate results in an expression. This is necessary to support
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different types of CPUs.<BR>
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RGBLink DIDN'T know about the special PC symbol "@" so if you used it
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more than once per sourcefile in an expression the linker had to
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resolve, things would go horribly wrong.<BR>
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There was a bug in the macro parameter passing. Any whitespace after the
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last parameter would be appended to the last parameter. Reported by Jeff Frohwein.<BR>
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A section stack has been implemented. Look up POPS and PUSHS in the
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manual. Jeff Frohweins doing again.<BR>
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OPT command added for defining and changing some options while assembling.<BR>
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You can now define which characters are used for the Gameboy graphics
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integer (`) using the commandline or the new OPT command. Cool idea by (surprise surprise) Jeff Frohwein.<BR>
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Also, an option stack has been added. Look up POPO and PUSHO in the
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manual.<BR>
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Fixed yet another line number bug reported by Jeff Frohwein (when will this guy leave me alone? ;)<BR>
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</TD>
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<TR>
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<TD ALIGN="Center">1.02</TD>
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<TD ALIGN="Center">22 July 1997</TD>
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<TD><B>General fixes:</B><BR>
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The lamest typo bug of all time has been fixed. RGBAsm would output a word defined with DW as 4 bytes instead of 2. Jeff Frohwein reported this.<BR>
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The first line of an included file didn't assemble correctly.<BR>
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-b option added for setting the characters used for binary constants.<BR>
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</TD>
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</TR>
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<TR>
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<TD ALIGN="Center">1.10</TD>
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<TD ALIGN="Center">21 Sep 1997</TD>
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<TD><B>General fixes:</B><BR>
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The assembler would crash if you tried to use a macro symbol in an expression.
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(Jeff Frohwein)<BR>
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You couldn't use STRCMP, STRLEN and STRIN in relocatable expressions. (Harry
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P. Mulder)<BR>
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Relocatable symbols are no longer allowed as arguments to the DEF function.<BR>
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Finally! A librarian and smart linking has been added.<BR>
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Bug fixed in the assembler where it would sometimes write out too many bytes
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for HRAM section definitions.<BR>
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-z options (set fill value used for uninitialised data) added to the
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assembler and linker.<BR>
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The assembler will now read in any type of ASCII file on any type of OS.
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</TABLE>
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<BR><HR>
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<FONT SIZE="-1"><I><P ALIGN=RIGHT>Last updated 08 October 1997 by <A HREF="mailto:surfsmurf@matilde.demon.co.uk">Carsten Sorensen</A></P></I></FONT>
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</BODY>
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</HTML>
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