Release folder

[mistavia]

Hey David, I know it's a pain, but is there any chance of getting a release folder with the images already built? I've struggled to get the code to compile.

[davidgiven]

They're checked in these days: look at the two .img files in the root. OTOH I've just figured out how to upload things to the github release page from travis, so I might try to make that work.

What compilation problems are you having?

[SGCMarketing]

Thanks David, I found them and have it all working on my NC200 - fantastic work! Out of interest, I tried to compile a quick test using your Assembler, but I get a ZSDOS error M: No Drive. Any thoughts what this may be?

[SGCMarketing]

If it helps, seems to be call 19 in asm.com

[davidgiven]

Aha, I know this one --- do asm foo, not asm foo.asm. The file extension is used as drive letter options. That's not my fault; it's how the original asm worked...

[Allisontheolder]

That is a CP/M ASM distinct oddity and some other did that as well.

The CP/M ASM assembler manual explains that and other features.

ASM foo creates: foo.hex, foo.prn foo.sym on the current drive
ASM foo.BBB puts the same result on drive B
ASM foo.ABC they all three if they exist will get each piece.

It made building large files on small drive possible
(some vendors drives/controllers were maybe 82K).

[davidgiven]

I'm actually thinking that this is such a nasty gotcha that keeping compatibility isn't worth it, and changing the command line interface to be more modern is a good idea. While I'm at it, I should fix the bugs (after finding them first)...

[Allisontheolder]

its CP/M fix that and its dos... ;)
That and it would not match the docs. Thats the nasty as with compatibility there
is free documentation. We all know Docs are last and take longer.

The easier way is ASMZ, Zmac, ZASM, ASMZ80, or one of 20+ other assemblers
there wer eno shortage of opinions, formats and mnemonics (Try the TDL version).
Maybe even a copy of MS MAC.

I may have a big advantage as I have working 8080/8085/z80/z180/z280 systems in
to run on or extract working versions from. That and having the Walnut Creek CP/M
compendium to look back at is handy. I can source most anything.

[davidgiven]

Most of those don't have source, though! And those that do don't have licenses I can use... I found one Z80 assembler which looked really nice; small, fast, flexible, producing .REL object files, with nice clean source code, self-assembling, etc which had no license, no copyright message, and there was one reference to the author on the internet somewhere in a university in Africa. They didn't answer their email. (Oddly, I can't find it any more. I'm sure it was on Retroarchive.)

I also contacted Microsoft's open source releasing department regarding their tools, BTW. They were interested, but the IP for all those old tools are apparently tied up in other things and they weren't optimistic.

[Allisontheolder]

The source for a lot of them were from DDJ. So you need to research back to that.
As time goes on they get scarcer as sites just go away because someone didn't bother to
pay for the DNS. Its why the WC CP/M CD and a really big personal archive becomes important.
Mostt there was already released to the wilds.

Long time ago MS declared a lot of the CP/M 8 bit software as copy as copy can, like other things that relase is lost to the deep reaches of the 'net. They have no technology in the 8 bit stuff in anything other than it was $500US for it no matter what it was or how buggy.

Licenses are not a big deal as anything I'd likely use I more than likely bought a copy of anyway
at one time and its like they are going to (or can) remotely snoop on a CP/M machine sans any
non existent net connection.

Suggestions were made.

If you remove that "feature" you have to supply a more than a not about modifications as something would have to be done very differently to accomplish the goals.

[Allisontheolder]

One last and call it closed:
ASM is important as is to compile 8080/8085 files that are fairly common or those of
out old periodicals. Its format is fairly plain but other assemblers may see format and evaluation errors with older asm files even dump.asm

Avoids a documentation nightmare.

Suggested ASM as named stays compatable and called ASM, a revised version should carry a different name so its not confused with ASM.

My AmproLB+ as a large drive so each mountable 8mb partition has specific uses
and the drive for assembly work carries in the system directory (user 0) over 20
different flavors of asm and Z80 asms. Why each one has its specific format or
other differences.

[tjewell99]

Hi, sorry, I think I'm being a bit dim here - I can't find the prebuilt images?

[davidgiven]

Ah, sorry --- I got rid of them as they caused horrible diffing problems when checking stuff in or doing merges. It should be possible to upload builds to Github; I've done it for another project. I'll see what I can do...

[tjewell99]

Thanks! I'd normally be quite happy building the images myself (much better if I want to tinker), but I'm having problems at the moment (see my other issue).