17 replies to this topic

[Tyrant]

I'm just wondering what the differences are, and what reason there might be to upgrade my toolchain?

[doctorclu]

Tyrant, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 8:20 AM, said:

I'm just wondering what the differences are, and what reason there might be to upgrade my toolchain?

I see you are talking about Macs.. when you say older Mac and newer Mac, what do you mean?

[Tyrant]

doctorclu, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 8:59 AM, said:

I see you are talking about Macs.. when you say older Mac and newer Mac, what do you mean?

Sorry, I perhaps should have been clearer, I meant madmac the Atari macro assembler, vs the more newly written "smac" assembler.

[Atari_Owl]

Smac contains macros to assist with RISC code running from main.

I can assemble and link the Owl Project with either.

Apparently there are still a few bugs with SMAC and SLN but SUBQMOD is addressing these so if yuou try it, and please do, then please also let him know if you have any issues and he will address them.

Other than that SMAC and SLN are more compatible with more OSs

Edited by Atari_Owl, Sat Jul 17, 2010 9:22 AM.

[Tyrant]

Atari_Owl, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 9:21 AM, said:

Smac contains macros to assist with RISC code running from main.

Hmm... surely the required macros could be used for madmac too? I've not tried, but the rules concerning the alignment don't seem particularly tricky to follow.

Atari_Owl, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 9:21 AM, said:

Other than that SMAC and SLN are more compatible with more OSs

That's not going to be an issue for me until/unless someone writes an improved wdb.

[Zerosquare]

Basically, if you're comfortable with mac and aln, there is no real reason to switch right now.

[Atari_Owl]

Tyrant, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 9:50 AM, said:

Atari_Owl, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 9:21 AM, said:

Smac contains macros to assist with RISC code running from main.

Hmm... surely the required macros could be used for madmac too? I've not tried, but the rules concerning the alignment don't seem particularly tricky to follow.

They're not tricky to follow - just tiresome to keep track of

[Tyrant]

Atari_Owl, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 3:35 PM, said:

They're not tricky to follow - just tiresome to keep track of

What I meant is, surely you don't need a whole new assembler to process the macros for keeping track of the alignments, you should be able to use the macro support in madmac to do the same thing, right?

[CannibalCat]

Tyrant, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 4:47 PM, said:

Atari_Owl, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 3:35 PM, said:

They're not tricky to follow - just tiresome to keep track of

What I meant is, surely you don't need a whole new assembler to process the macros for keeping track of the alignments, you should be able to use the macro support in madmac to do the same thing, right?

I think the bigger purpose of the new tools was modern OS compatibility from what I can see.

[Atari_Owl]

[quote name='CannibalCat' date='Wed Jul 21, 2010 10:24 PM' timestamp='1279747446' post='2055813']
[quote name='Tyrant' date='Sat Jul 17, 2010 6:47 PM' timestamp='1279406823' post='2052963']
[quote name='Atari_Owl' date='Sat Jul 17, 2010 10:35 PM' timestamp='1279402509' post='2052929']
They're not tricky to follow - just tiresome to keep track of
[/quote]
What I meant is, surely you don't need a whole new assembler to process the macros for keeping track of the alignments, you should be able to use the macro support in madmac to do the same thing, right?
[/quote]

I think the bigger purpose of the new tools was modern OS compatibility from what I can see.
[/quote]

I already mentioned that
[quote name='Atari_Owl' date='Sat Jul 17, 2010 4:21 PM' timestamp='1279380092' post='2052719'
Other than that SMAC and SLN are more compatible with more OSs
[/quote]

Just mentioned that there were other positives too - wish i hadn't bothered

[Atari_Owl]

CannibalCat, on Wed Jul 21, 2010 3:24 PM, said:

Tyrant, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 4:47 PM, said:

Atari_Owl, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 3:35 PM, said:

They're not tricky to follow - just tiresome to keep track of

What I meant is, surely you don't need a whole new assembler to process the macros for keeping track of the alignments, you should be able to use the macro support in madmac to do the same thing, right?

I think the bigger purpose of the new tools was modern OS compatibility from what I can see.

I already mentioned that

Atari_Owl, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 9:21 AM, said:

Other than that SMAC and SLN are more compatible with more OSs

Just mentioned that there were other positives too - wish i hadn't

Edited by Atari_Owl, Wed Jul 21, 2010 3:48 PM.

[CyranoJ]

CannibalCat, on Wed Jul 21, 2010 3:24 PM, said:

I think the bigger purpose of the new tools was modern OS compatibility from what I can see.

From what I gather Mac/ALN work on Vista and W7, so thats not really an issue any more.

I always use Mac - nothing more frustrating that traking down a bug only to discover that SMAC assembled something incorrectly. We do however assemble with SMAC occasionally and compare binaries which has helped identify a few bugs in SMAC which SubQMod has immediatly fixed.

As I've said before, if you can't manage to set up DOSbox then you really shouldn't be trying to code on anything. It's not that difficult to get running

[JagChris]

Tyrant, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 4:47 PM, said:

Atari_Owl, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 3:35 PM, said:

They're not tricky to follow - just tiresome to keep track of

What I meant is, surely you don't need a whole new assembler to process the macros for keeping track of the alignments, you should be able to use the macro support in madmac to do the same thing, right?

No. With madmac you have to do it manually I believe. With Smac the macros are built in to automate the process. That ws part of the reason smac was created, beyond the ability to be used on new systems.

[Tyrant]

JagChris, on Thu Jul 22, 2010 10:40 AM, said:

Tyrant, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 4:47 PM, said:

Atari_Owl, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 3:35 PM, said:

They're not tricky to follow - just tiresome to keep track of

What I meant is, surely you don't need a whole new assembler to process the macros for keeping track of the alignments, you should be able to use the macro support in madmac to do the same thing, right?

No. With madmac you have to do it manually I believe. With Smac the macros are built in to automate the process. That ws part of the reason smac was created, beyond the ability to be used on new systems.

Do what manually?

Do you mean manually include the macros; or that for some reason madmac's macro capabilities aren't advanced enough to cope with the alignment issues?

[JagChris]

Tyrant, on Thu Jul 22, 2010 3:48 PM, said:

JagChris, on Thu Jul 22, 2010 10:40 AM, said:

Tyrant, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 4:47 PM, said:

Atari_Owl, on Sat Jul 17, 2010 3:35 PM, said:

They're not tricky to follow - just tiresome to keep track of

What I meant is, surely you don't need a whole new assembler to process the macros for keeping track of the alignments, you should be able to use the macro support in madmac to do the same thing, right?

No. With madmac you have to do it manually I believe. With Smac the macros are built in to automate the process. That ws part of the reason smac was created, beyond the ability to be used on new systems.

Do what manually?

Do you mean manually include the macros; or that for some reason madmac's macro capabilities aren't advanced enough to cope with the alignment issues?

I dont program in assembly so I am not exactly sure. Smac is designed around automating the process through macros. You can read the smac manual and see how it says to implement them or of course you can use madmac and do it the old fashioned way the way Gorf says he does and see what the differences are and which way you like doing it better.

[JagChris]

CyranoJ, on Wed Jul 21, 2010 4:41 PM, said:

CannibalCat, on Wed Jul 21, 2010 3:24 PM, said:

I think the bigger purpose of the new tools was modern OS compatibility from what I can see.

From what I gather Mac/ALN work on Vista and W7, so thats not really an issue any more.

I always use Mac - nothing more frustrating that traking down a bug only to discover that SMAC assembled something incorrectly. We do however assemble with SMAC occasionally and compare binaries which has helped identify a few bugs in SMAC which SubQMod has immediatly fixed.

Looks like the bugs in Smac are closer and closer to being completely squished.

[GT Turbo]

JagChris, on Thu Jul 22, 2010 10:40 AM, said:

That ws part of the reason smac was created, beyond the ability to be used on new systems.

I use a CT60 Falcon for Jag coding !! Hihi !!


GT

[Atari_Owl]

I do too sometimes - and in fact when i started i used the Falcon060 exclusively (now its just usually more convenient with a PC)

Edited by Atari_Owl, Tue Aug 24, 2010 2:10 AM.