Seeming as though this seems to be the place to hang out for code heads/hack heads and tech heads etc, I thought it would be reasonable to ask (as a non code/hack head) does there exist on this forum any assembler (aka machine language/code) guides and tutorials for any of the following proccesors 68000 (ST and megadrive/Amiga) 6502 (A-Lynx, 7800/5200 and A8) those are the processor's and systems i'm most interested in looking to program for or on Any help would be greatfully appeciated
For the 68k, look at Megadrive dev - last I checked there was a fairly active community there, plenty of websites with lots of details. For the 6502, nesdev.parodius.com crops up a lot. Nothing in any depth here for either, tbh.
Well the 68000 has easy to use assembly it's the support architecture you need to worry about in those systems. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/68000_Assembly 6502 is a bit of a weirdo, if you compare the 6502 to the ice or aftermarket processor (if it can even be called as such) I believe the nes is custom in a way... calpis would know. I love the 68000, and the world does too. It's around you in ways you would never imagine. There must be half a dozen products in your room with 68k in it.
Talking to calpis and 6502 is custom in nes, something about audio integrated and removal of some functions.
Well, I don't know of any tutorials, but if you want plain old technical documents: http://www.zophar.net/documents/6502.html http://www.zophar.net/documents/68000.html http://www.zophar.net/documents/genesis.html
Hah! You couldn't have picked two processors more different from each other. 68k is breeze to learn. It's quite possibly the easiest processor to code for in assembly of all time. It's why it's soo popular (that, and it's ISA is closer to higher level language than most processors). You should have no problems finding plenty of tutorials on arch. The 65x... have fun with that. While it might have been really popular BITD due to its cheap cost, it's not exactly an easy processor to learn on. Very simple instructions, totally different ISA, arch, and programming approach puts a lot of people off. It definitely requires more effort and patience to get optimized code out of the 65x, but if you have that - it really is a rewarding experience. Also, optimizations are not so apparent on the 65x as they are with other generalized processors (which tends to cause people to under rate it). But again, there are plenty of 65x tutorials due to its popularity like the 68k, just not as easy to pick up on or to optimize for. Also, are those the machines you plan on coding for (the ones in the first post)? They couldn't be more different from each other, even though they share the same processor. This also effects how you optimize your assembly code too My advice, if you really are serious about this, is to learn the 65x first. Then, when you take on the 68k - it'll be like a vacation No sweat. If you start the 68k first, you might not like coding on the 65x (actually, that's probably a guarantee).
I didn't like 68K, still prefer the lovely Z80 but then again I'm not a professional programmer so what do I know...
That's weird. Because of all the processors from that era, the 68k feels like an upgrade path from the z80 in design. The original 6800/6809 is *very* much like the 65x (well, they are related in design and shares some of the same founding/main engineers) and nothing like the 68k design. The z80 is my least favorite processor. To me, it codes like a crippled 68k (and z80 was my first console processor I learned assembly on, so I *should* have a bias towards it). The slow bus accesses like the 68k but without all the powerful instructions. It does have a few nice opcodes (and *some* hardware macro level 16bit stuff), but they don't make up for the overall short comings IMO. Also, you don't need to be a professional programmer to have an opinion
