Re: A82: Ilya?

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Re: A82: Ilya?


At 10:05 PM 5/5/99 -0600, you wrote:
>Well, Dines answered your questions about the ROM_CALL's.
>
>I have a question however:
>What is that status of SQRXZ or that grey-scale game ADAMMAN is making?
>Is anybody going to make a new assembly game for the 82 soon????

Well, I have been addressed.  I will be able to continue work on SQRXZ
soon.  I am frantically doing 2 things:

1)  Writing TAZM.
2)  Re-designing my web pages and expanding the entire site.

TAZM is a Z80 table assembler like TASM301, but the main advantage is that
there are no limitations until memory runs out.  Based on TASM301's docs I
determined I was going to run out of line labels before I finished SQRXZ
82.  So, I threw up my hands in desperation and I wrote 2000 lines of
source for TAZM.

While I'm talking about TAZM, are there any features that anyone would like
to see?  Note that TAZM's syntax has some differences that make code easier
to read:

ld bc,(TEXTMEM + 12) becomes ld bc,([TEXTMEM + 12])

TASM301's format is harder to read because an address is being referenced,
which could be a label, macro, or defined constant.  Thus, the preprocessor
has to search all three types for a match.  The new format says that this
is a constant value + 12.  This makes is much easier to process...thus
making it faster.

Due to this new syntax, there is no longer the requirement that spaces be
before the lines of actual code:

Label:
  ld bc,0

Could be

Label:
ld bc,0

That's bad coding, but it's allowed (TASM301's format is still strongly
supported...this is allowed for more flexibility).

There's much more to TAZM than just these new features.  I have included
the standard "Stats" section to the end of each assemble.  Error messages
are much more detailed than TASM301's.  A memory usage display is planned.
Direct binary file inclusion (e.g. #bininclude "Filename.bin").  Anything
else that people want (?).

Once I have TAZM working decently, I will resume SQRXZ 82.  Until then,
visit the Shining Light Productions web page for regular updates :)


        Thomas J. Hruska -- shinelight@detroit.crosswinds.net
Shining Light Productions -- "Meeting the needs of fellow programmers"
                   http://www.shininglightpro.com/
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