Date   : Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:19:55 +0000
From   : tom@... (Tom Seddon)
Subject: Cross Assemlby

John Kortink wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:01:23 -0000, "Paul" wrote:
> 
>> [...]
>>
>> Ok, as an example, I write something in notepad, a DOS program converts it 
>> into a format that the machine understands and I drag and drop the new 
>> created program into the emulator, and execute a command (or it auto runs) 
>> and the program I've written runs....bugs and testing later, I then create a 
>> "!Boot" etc on a disk image, transfer back to a real disk, onto a real 
>> Beeb...(that's the plan ultimately)
>>
>> I've been doing this on the C64 (WinVice Emulator) for a few years now, but 
>> I would really like to have a go with the BBC varieties....
>>
>> Has anybody attempted this?
> 
> I do it all the time, with two differences : I assemble
> on a Risc PC (with a BASIC V patched to understand 6502
> assembly), and I test on an actual BBC (via 65Link),
> the latter mainly because I develop GoMMC and 65Link,

This sort of thing works very well. I use John's 65Link, and for this 
purpose it is excellent. (And for all other purposes, too, but that's 
beside the point here :)

I have myself set up with emacs, dasm65, and a batch file called 
make.bat to assemble the code into a place the BBC can see it. Then from 
within emacs I can do a M-x compile (or F7 as I refer to it) to have it 
call "make", which runs the batch file and assembles the code.

I have the 65Link volume set up to *EXEC !BOOT, with the !BOOT file 
containing a *LOAD then a CALL. Then the first thing my program does is 
invert the Shift+BREAK behaviour, so that after the first time it's been 
run I can reassemble the code on the PC, press BREAK on the Beeb, and 
have the program reloaded pretty much instantly.

I'm not aware of any of the emulators having any easy support for doing 
this kind of thing, but I could be wrong. My emulator model-b will 
autoboot a disc image from the command line, so provided you have a way 
of creating a suitable disc image this might be one thing to try. No 
automated way of reloading disc images mid-run though I'm afraid, you 
have to mess with the UI or quit and run from command line again.

Perhaps one of the other emulators has something more useful?

--Tom