Berch's assembler

Any discussions related to the creation of new hardware or software for the ZX80 or ZX81
floydbloke
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2008 7:21 am
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

Berch's assembler

Post by floydbloke »

Now that I'm nearing the age of mid-life crisis I'm wanting to re-live some of my eighties days and have discovered the world of ZX81 emulators. Always having wanted to dabble in a bit of machine code/assembly programming I have come across Berch's emulator. I'm keen to use it and have found some documentation on the various keyboard functions but I can't for the life of me figure out where/how to enter and store the mnemonics, and where/how it organises the memory for the assembler itself and the user's code. Please can anyone help me out with this, a set of written instructions would of course be even better.

Many thanks
sirmorris
Posts: 2811
Joined: Thu May 08, 2008 5:45 pm

Re: Berch's assembler

Post by sirmorris »

Hiya and welcome.

I'm an '81 old timer and I've had a hard time tracking down info on this program - all I've come up with is a scan of an advert. You should probably make it easier on yourself and use a more widely available toolkit - like ZXAS/ZXDB http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/genera ... yped).html. You'll have access to a wider range of experience.

Nostalgia is all well and good - but if it's Z80 coding you want to do then save yourself the pain of working in an emulator and do some cross-assembly from the comfort of your PC!

Get hold of TASM http://home.comcast.net/~tasm/ and when you've had a chance to familiarise yourself I'll be glad to help out with some templates that will allow you to directly assemble binary images that load straight onto your zeddie either through an emulator or by conversion to a WAV that you can LOAD"".
floydbloke
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2008 7:21 am
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

Re: Berch's assembler

Post by floydbloke »

Thanks sirmorris

It's indeed a fine line between nostalgia and torture. I'm just working with an emulator at the moment (EightyOne) so I've got the benefit of snapshot saves and TZXs. I might ring my dad and see if he's still got the original hardware.

Some useful info and tools there. ZXAS seems to be functional and effective so I think I'll run with that. Had a quick go with TASM and that looks good also. It'll need a bit more of my time to get to grips with it some more and work out how to get the code loaded in the emulator (I'm hoping the templates you mentioned could well help me out here). Not sure I can justify US$40 to register it though.

What are the general views on VB81XUR?
floydbloke
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2008 7:21 am
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

Re: Berch's assembler

Post by floydbloke »

Update, I 've just discovered how to load .obj files into EightyOne (stunning piece of work ,that emulator).
sirmorris
Posts: 2811
Joined: Thu May 08, 2008 5:45 pm

Re: Berch's assembler

Post by sirmorris »

Agreed. :D

Unless you have a 2 stage process which involves exporting the object code out of '81 it would still be beneficial to use a template which generates .P files. These can be distributed widely and used on a real machine.
temper.zip
Here be the files
(48.75 KiB) Downloaded 612 times
Let me know how you get on.
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XavSnap
Posts: 1940
Joined: Sat May 10, 2008 4:23 pm
Location: 'Zx81 France' Fb group.

Re: Berch's assembler

Post by XavSnap »

Hi floydbloke!
What are the general views on VB81XUR?
Artic ASM2 is inclued in the XuR...
But, you can debug your codes in real time using a the Disassembler Window.

Have a look to :
new web page on Zx81 machine codes...
http://zx81.vb81.free.fr/ASM2.html

I use it all time i can... and i use EO to test my codes compatibilities ;-)))
You can also use the excellent No$cash too.

Have fun.
Attachments
VB.gif
Vb81 Orginal Vs XuR release ... LoL ;-)))
(5.17 KiB) Downloaded 11981 times
Xavier ...on the Facebook groupe : "Zx81 France"(fr)
floydbloke
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2008 7:21 am
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

Re: Berch's assembler

Post by floydbloke »

Thanks all

Really good stuff here. It will take me some time (which is, due to work commitments, rather scarce at the moment) to get my head around it. Hopefully you won't mind answering the odd query trickling through from me in the next few weeks.
sirmorris
Posts: 2811
Joined: Thu May 08, 2008 5:45 pm

Re: Berch's assembler

Post by sirmorris »

Not at all.

It's good to have the noise :)
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XavSnap
Posts: 1940
Joined: Sat May 10, 2008 4:23 pm
Location: 'Zx81 France' Fb group.

Re: Berch's assembler

Post by XavSnap »

Hi,

Just a littlle question !

What's "Berch's assembler" ? :oops:
...
Xavier ...on the Facebook groupe : "Zx81 France"(fr)
floydbloke
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2008 7:21 am
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

Re: Berch's assembler

Post by floydbloke »

An assembler program (not an emulator as I mistakenly referred to in my initial post, my bad) for the ZX81 written in 1983 by someone called by Bob Berch. See attached. It caught my interest when I first started trawling the InterWeb for ZX81 material prior to being steered toward other tools by yourself and SirMorris.
BERCH16K.P
(8.97 KiB) Downloaded 448 times
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