Re: Asm source code page?

"Craig Carmichael [email protected] [msp430]" <[email protected]> Wed, 13 Jan 2016 00:20:52 -0800
Newsgroups gmane.comp.hardware.texas-instruments.msp430.discuss
Message-ID <a0623090ad2bbaa630d6d@[192.168.0.14]>
Wow, what a discussion I've sparked!

>5. Assembly is all they know, and they don't want to learn C.

Bingo! I learned the bare essentials of assembler taking electronics 
(digital specialty) at BCIT in 1974/1975. I started by building 
microcomputers, which were hardly available at the time, from the 
chips. Never took programming per se, but the computers were only 
useful with software, so I developed my 6809 structured assembler and 
a crude text editor for my 6809 based computer. And a 4800 baud 
cassette interface for data storage - 4 times faster than any 
commercial ones and more reliable.

I wrote among other things the first "Paint" program ever sold to the 
public, "TV Graphics Editor" (1982) for Radio Shack Color Computer 
(MC6809), and the world's first graphic adventure/role playing game, 
"Viking Raider" (1984) for the Commodore 64. (Not a single untouched 
256 byte block of memory remained, but I got everything in! About 150 
screens of RLE map/scenery. Oh yah, the 6502 cross assembler that ran 
on the Radio Shack CoCo for that project was another stuctured 
assembler I wrote. I recall it only took 5 days to write, but it was 
essentially just an adaptation of the 6809 version.)

When I saw "Mac Paint" on the first Macintoshes, I thought they had 
copied my "TV Graphics Editor", but there were enough differences 
that I cancelled that thought, and I found out later that there was 
an even earlier "Paint" program that had circulated in university 
circles, on which Mac Paint was based.

When I got into the 68K I started writing AKO really sophisticated 
stuff, but I never got it to market.

I dislike C. I have the hubris to think I (and I speak only for 
myself) can do anything better and faster in assembler. ...with a 
processor having a nice architecture and instruction set. From the 
68K stuff on I've always tried to document and comment what I do very 
fully. That's what will make the code easier for others to deal with 
it later more than what language it's written in. I often find C very 
hard to figure out just because it is so often sparcely commented - 
also because the source is so often split into several or even many 
files, which is of course a reflection of author philosophy or 'C 
traditions' more than of the language itself.

I'm not sure why I've typed all this. Now it's past bedtime and I 
haven't done the work I meant to!

--Mr. Prejudiced

PS: Hey, who swiped all my indents and spacings? (Rhetorical question) Grr!

>test D1; SkipCS |BCS to end brace (BCS on 68K = JCS on MSP)
>{
>whatever
>whatever more
>dec D0; loopNE |BNE to start brace
>}


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Posted by: Craig Carmichael <[email protected]>
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