A$$EMBLE IT!
 

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION, AND ABOUT ASSEMBLERS

Introduction

The main purpose for this web site is to produce legal future reference for those people who would like to be involved with assembly programming side of the C64. This documentation differs through various assembly coding techniques, commands, etc. By reading through this documentation, you should soon end up creating cool, exciting and possibly crazy programs in no time. Later on in this documentation, you will learn how to create your own games, that involve moving sprites, animating background objects, playing SID music, adding scores, etc. Hopefully you should be able to understand assembly programming in approximately one or two months. Oh and you'll be having a go at making a C64 game in no time.

What is an Assembler?

An assembler is a programming language that allows you to program in a different way, compared to the BASIC programming language. BASIC is a very easy programming language, but assembly language is more professional and it can do a lot more enhanced techniques. Many demo programmers, such as Civitas (The demo group which I'm in) use an assembler, which creates cool demos, effects etc.

What type of Assemblers are there?

Various C64/Cross assemblers may differ, as different commands are used, but they all do build up the same routines when assembled to your Commodore 64. You write a program listing in an assembler, and then you need to assemble it before you create a runnable file and test your file. There are different types of assemblers, which have their own features. The assemblers are as follows:

What is a Cross Assembler?

A cross assembler is a PC version of a normal 6502 assembler. It is a small executable compiler program, which will assemble and compile text files (which use the assembly instruction code) into a chosen assembled program. Basically a cross assembler can convert all text assembly commands to a 6502 program for any machine that supports this level of programming. Unlike normal Commodore 64 assemblers, a cross assembler has better limitations than a normal Commodore 64 assembler, like Turbo Assembler. Cross assemblers can also import source binary files, i.e. additional C64 graphics, music, data, etc. Usually by using a command like .INCBIN or .BINARY or !BIN. You can also link more than one source file to your assembled production

Assemblers for the Commodore 64
Cross assemblers/compilers for the PC to the Commodore 64 (Links to original sources)
 Some recommended PC-cross platform software to use for developing all kinds of things

This part gives you recommended cross platform software for use on your PC for developing all kinds of things, from graphics to music, and also for linking and compression, etc.
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