BigMac(Merlin) and Monitor - Sedoric version

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iss
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BigMac(Merlin) and Monitor - Sedoric version

Post by iss »

Hello,
I want to present two (in my opinion) useful programs - BigMac(Merlin) and Monitor by Boby (the author of Dos-8D).
This programs exist since ages but only in the Pravetz world, because they were written to work only under Dos-8D v1.0.
The "absolute" original of BigMac(Merlin) is for Apple][, Boby used the idea
and "borrowed" some code from the original to create the Pravetz version. To say this, I use the fact, that BigMac is written
mostly in Sweet16 and even can assemble Sweet16 sources - exactly as the original.
But this is only curious detail, which don't belittle Boby's excellent work!

I decided to "port" BigMac and Monitor to Sedoric , so more people can try them and probably like and use for assembler coding for Oric.
In attached ZIP file you will find:
- ready to use DSK;
- manual for BigMac(Merlin) - only minimal set of commands and options are available in Oric version (see MerlinManual-Oric.txt);
- manual for Monitor - to enter Monitor from BigMac, use 'MON" command when in editor mode, to quit Monitor and return to BigMac type '\';
- demo.txt - can be typed in BigMac editor and assembled;
- bmasm.mp4 - short video (captured from Oricutron) showing typing above 'demo.txt', assembling and runnig;
- sources of my loader-wrapper, other are just converted with bin2txt.

Known issues:
Maybe there are many, but most important one is - the 'ORG' directive works as expected, but the produced executable file
isn't ORG'ed properly. I'll post details in 'Operating systems' asking for help with Sedoric commands.
As workaround use the default value always: ORG $9C00

EDIT: Thanks to Symoon, the 'ORG' issue is fixed now.
ZIP-file is updated and contains additional 'MerlinManual-Oric.txt'.
This manual is stripped version and describes only what is available for Oric.
bmasm.zip
Updated version 1.1
(306.98 KiB) Downloaded 627 times
I think this native assembler for Oric Atmos excels any other and it's worth to be used.
In worst case it's yet another program for your collection.
Of course nowadays for any serious work cross development tools are the best choice.
Last edited by iss on Mon Jun 29, 2015 10:49 am, edited 5 times in total.
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ibisum
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Re: BigMac(Merlin) and Monitor - Sedoric version

Post by ibisum »

Wow, this is fantastic work .. even though it does make more sense to use the OSDK, I personally prefer to see more native development tools written for the Oric, because its not quite as fun to be writing software with Windows as it is to be using the Oric itself .. plus its a much more fluid flow, when you can write stuff to the Oric disk and so on .. so I'll be checking this out in the next week ..

Thanks for the effort! Great work!
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