New productivity upload: X16 Edit - a text editor

[Scott Robison]

On 10/5/2021 at 1:59 PM, TomXP411 said:

I have written an 8080 assembler in c#... so I know I can write a simple assembler in c. The issue is, as you said, I've only got so many hours a day. Right now, I'm learning a new musical instrument, starting to arrange songs for a brass band, and working 50 hours a week... so I don't have a huge amount of free time either.  

I feel your pain. Except instead of music related stuff, it is learning about electronics, along with the 40+ hour work week and spending extra time helping with the Robots port to the 128. I'm glad to be doing it all! Just certain immutable laws of physics & biology preclude me doing much more at the moment.

[BruceMcF]

On 10/5/2021 at 4:03 PM, Ed Minchau said:

It's in sort of a weird space in between monitor and editor. I'm writing the code directly, and can use the labels as part of the parameters,  but I can also insert and delete bytes as if I was making room in a text editor, and can copy or move code around.  The mnemonics are slightly different from the standard notation, too.

I wouldn't consider being standard notation a critical issue ... heck, when the Z80 was created as a super-set of the 8080, Zilog used a quite different notation than the standard intel 8080 assembler notation.

Or "Assembly Binary Editor".

[Scott Robison]

On 10/5/2021 at 6:18 PM, BruceMcF said:

I wouldn't consider being standard notation a critical issue ... heck, when the Z80 was created as a super-set of the 8080, Zilog used a quite different notation than the standard intel 8080 assembler notation.



Or "Assembly Binary Editor".

I think Zilog went that way of necessity, not desire, as Intel threatened legal action or some such.

[TomXP411]

On 10/5/2021 at 5:41 PM, Scott Robison said:

I think Zilog went that way of necessity, not desire, as Intel threatened legal action or some such.

Intel claimed a Copyright on the mnemonics, which meant no one was allowed to use their names for their instructions. So even though the Z80 is 99% compatible with the 8080, Zilog had to make up their own names for the instructions. 

Eventually, the courts ruled that re-implementing instruction set mnemonics and software APIs are fair use - ie, you can't sue someone for using the same mnemonics as you.

In other words, Zilog didn't need to go to the trouble. 

 

[Scott Robison]

On 10/5/2021 at 8:12 PM, TomXP411 said:

Intel claimed a Copyright on the mnemonics, which meant no one was allowed to use their names for their instructions. So even though the Z80 is 99% compatible with the 8080, Zilog had to make up their own names for the instructions. 



Eventually, the courts ruled that re-implementing instruction set mnemonics and software APIs are fair use - ie, you can't sue someone for using the same mnemonics as you.



In other words, Zilog didn't need to go to the trouble. 

It probably cost them a lot less to design new mnemonics than the fight the court case in the short term. Many a company has gone bankrupt due to legal fees even when they were right in the end.

[BruceMcF]

On 10/5/2021 at 8:41 PM, Scott Robison said:

I think Zilog went that way of necessity, not desire, as Intel threatened legal action or some such.

I think I didn't make any claim that Zilog did it because just because they were really keen on the idea.

But the other example I had in mind is the classical FIG Forth 6502 assembler, with not only idiosyncratic mnemonics but also operand / instruction order.

[Scott Robison]

On 10/5/2021 at 9:23 PM, BruceMcF said:

I think I didn't make any claim that Zilog did it because just because they were really keen on the idea.



But the other example I had in mind is the classical FIG Forth 6502 assembler, which not only idiosyncratic mnemonics but also operand / operand order.

Fair enough.

[Stefan]

New version 0.4.1 of X16 Edit published in the downloads section.

[desertfish]

@Stefan got the new launch-with-options working, however: how is the auto-indent supposed to work?  The editor never seems to auto indent for me....

[Stefan]

On 12/13/2021 at 12:15 AM, desertfish said:

@Stefan got the new launch-with-options working, however: how is the auto-indent supposed to work?  The editor never seems to auto indent for me....

Hi,

When a line break is inserted, it counts the number of leading spaces on the line. The same number of spaces is inserted at the beginning of next line.

I think that is the way most editors works, even Visual Studio Code that I use a lot.