Comparison of Dragon Assemblers?

A place to discuss everything Dragon related that doesn't fall into the other categories.
Alastair
Posts: 669
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 11:33 pm

Comparison of Dragon Assemblers?

Post by Alastair »

Were any articles published that compared the various Dragon assembler packages? And if so, where were they published?
jedie
Posts: 655
Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2013 12:23 pm
Location: germany
Contact:

Re: Comparison of Dragon Assemblers?

Post by jedie »

Great question! :D

btw. must a assembler be "Dragon" specific or must it only 6809 specific?
... too many ideas and too little time ... Related stuff written in Python:
Dragon 32 emulator / PyDC - Python Dragon 32 converter: https://github.com/jedie/DragonPy
DWLOAD server / Dragon-Lib and other stuff: https://github.com/6809
User avatar
tormod
Posts: 416
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2013 12:06 pm
Location: Switzerland
Contact:

Re: Comparison of Dragon Assemblers?

Post by tormod »

jedie wrote:btw. must a assembler be "Dragon" specific or must it only 6809 specific?
The assembler is in principle 6809 specific but in the context here we talk about assembler programs running on the Dragon itself, I suppose.

Attached is the BASIC program "Editor & Assembler" by A.R.Billingham which I typed in from a magazine in 1984. Not that I used it that much. It used so much memory and I mostly hand-assembled and typed in hex in a selfmade BASIC monitor program instead. I was more productive with Forth. There was also a Forth compiler that I typed in from a magazine.
Attachments
01-editassm.cas
Editor & Assembler
(12.97 KiB) Downloaded 193 times
Alastair
Posts: 669
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 11:33 pm

Re: Comparison of Dragon Assemblers?

Post by Alastair »

jedie wrote:btw. must a assembler be "Dragon" specific or must it only 6809 specific?
If it runs on a Dragon it better not be CoCo specific :D (though it is possible to have assemblers that run on both the Dragon and CoCo).
jedie
Posts: 655
Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2013 12:23 pm
Location: germany
Contact:

Re: Comparison of Dragon Assemblers?

Post by jedie »

tormod wrote:Attached is the BASIC program "Editor & Assembler" by A.R.Billingham which I typed in from a magazine in 1984.
Can you explain how it works? Or is there anywhere some documentation?
... too many ideas and too little time ... Related stuff written in Python:
Dragon 32 emulator / PyDC - Python Dragon 32 converter: https://github.com/jedie/DragonPy
DWLOAD server / Dragon-Lib and other stuff: https://github.com/6809
User avatar
tormod
Posts: 416
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2013 12:06 pm
Location: Switzerland
Contact:

Re: Comparison of Dragon Assemblers?

Post by tormod »

No, I haven't used it in more than 25 years :) Maybe I will find the magazine one day, and it might have some instructions. Until then, just reading through the listing should give you some hints.
jedie
Posts: 655
Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2013 12:23 pm
Location: germany
Contact:

Re: Comparison of Dragon Assemblers?

Post by jedie »

I tried Encoder 09 and is seems to be useable.
... too many ideas and too little time ... Related stuff written in Python:
Dragon 32 emulator / PyDC - Python Dragon 32 converter: https://github.com/jedie/DragonPy
DWLOAD server / Dragon-Lib and other stuff: https://github.com/6809
User avatar
tormod
Posts: 416
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2013 12:06 pm
Location: Switzerland
Contact:

Re: Comparison of Dragon Assemblers?

Post by tormod »

tormod wrote:No, I haven't used it in more than 25 years :) Maybe I will find the magazine one day, and it might have some instructions. Until then, just reading through the listing should give you some hints.
Found it! It was online, see viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4417
Sarah
Posts: 177
Joined: Wed Apr 13, 2011 3:36 pm
Contact:

Re: Comparison of Dragon Assemblers?

Post by Sarah »

I always had the impression that the DREAM family was the most popular or best regarded assembler - not sure if any reviews or stats ever provided the basis for this belief. It was originally licensed by Dragon Data so probably inherited some status that way.
devo
Posts: 30
Joined: Mon May 13, 2013 10:19 am
Location: Canberra, Australia

Re: Comparison of Dragon Assemblers?

Post by devo »

was more productive with Forth. There was also a Forth compiler that I typed in from a magazine.
This week I have been playing with Dragon Forth and Tele-Forth on xroar; I also got Dragon Forth, converted from .cas to a .wav to load onto my Tano Dragon. Similar conversion of Tele-Forth .cas from archive.worldofdragon.org using cas2wav does not load when played back from PC audio out. There seems to be a decent editor on Tele-Forth but no built-in Dragon graphics or sound "words". Whereas, Dragon Forth seems to have more Dragon-specific words but a poor editor. I cannot get the N.D.U.G. Forth .vdk version to load at all - presumably needs some sort of Dos loaded first. Best of all Forth implementations I have found has been Color Forth through Coco 2 emulation on xroar. It has an integrated editor, good documentation, and key press sounds :) .

I've looked in all the usual places for some documentation for Dragon Forth and Tele-Forth but to no avail. Most importantly, instructions / editor command summary and any Dragon-specific features, not the language itself. Does anyone have any suggestions for a well documented implementation of Forth for the Dragon which loads reliably from .wav, or perhaps Drivewire which I am still getting to grips with? Thanks.
Post Reply