Re: JAM Assembler 1.13 problems?

2012-02-01 Thread david brant
People do use it then, not had much in the way of feedback.

Jam Assembler does not doing anything special with the font or anything like 
that. It would be using Windows API for fonts and messages etc. i.e. anything 
standard windows stuff. 

Jam Assembler not been tested on anything newer than XP though. 

What version of Java is your computer using? Have you tried re loading Jam 
Assembler? I have a newer version on my computer which sorts out some project 
view issues and does method inheritance I'll upload it tonight with a bit of 
luck.

Otherwise can you send me a screen shot please.

On 1 Feb 2012, at 01:19, Balor Price wrote:

 
 
 So, hmmm... while I'm fired up...  
 
 Anyone having problems with the GUI in Jam Assembler?  It's been a while 
 since I tinkered, but now I'm getting gobbledygook instead of English in the 
 dropdown menus and dialogue boxes... At a guess I'd say the font lookups had 
 gone askew, it's a JAR file that's executed so it's not relying on Windows 
 API calls or anything.  David?
 
 Howard



Re: JAM Assembler 1.13 problems?

2012-02-01 Thread Andrew Gillen
Hi David,

I have used JAM and found it to be an excellent environment. Much of the 
original code I wrote for Dave was developed  using it but I found the default 
build to address $8000 a limitation, so I ended up with a context/pasmo setup  
where I could do what I wanted and build to any address.

Cheers
Andrew



On 1 Feb 2012, at 07:59, david brant davidcbr...@yahoo.com wrote:

 People do use it then, not had much in the way of feedback.
 
 Jam Assembler does not doing anything special with the font or anything like 
 that. It would be using Windows API for fonts and messages etc. i.e. anything 
 standard windows stuff. 
 
 Jam Assembler not been tested on anything newer than XP though. 
 
 What version of Java is your computer using? Have you tried re loading Jam 
 Assembler? I have a newer version on my computer which sorts out some project 
 view issues and does method inheritance I'll upload it tonight with a bit of 
 luck.
 
 Otherwise can you send me a screen shot please.
 
 On 1 Feb 2012, at 01:19, Balor Price wrote:
 
 
 
 So, hmmm... while I'm fired up...  
 
 Anyone having problems with the GUI in Jam Assembler?  It's been a while 
 since I tinkered, but now I'm getting gobbledygook instead of English in the 
 dropdown menus and dialogue boxes... At a guess I'd say the font lookups had 
 gone askew, it's a JAR file that's executed so it's not relying on Windows 
 API calls or anything.  David?
 
 Howard
 


Re: JAM Assembler 1.13 problems?

2012-02-01 Thread Balor Price
Ah, well the feedback is probably my fault then as it's the only 
cross-assembler I've been using for SAM stuff.  I tried PASMO and AS8080 
but so far haven't really streamlined my compile-test-debug phases, so 
it was a natural choice.  I'll send you the details off-list... :)

Howard

On 01-Feb-12 07:59, david brant wrote:

People do use it then, not had much in the way of feedback.

Jam Assembler does not doing anything special with the font or anything like 
that. It would be using Windows API for fonts and messages etc. i.e. anything 
standard windows stuff.

Jam Assembler not been tested on anything newer than XP though.

What version of Java is your computer using? Have you tried re loading Jam 
Assembler? I have a newer version on my computer which sorts out some project 
view issues and does method inheritance I'll upload it tonight with a bit of 
luck.

Otherwise can you send me a screen shot please.

On 1 Feb 2012, at 01:19, Balor Price wrote:



So, hmmm... while I'm fired up...

Anyone having problems with the GUI in Jam Assembler?  It's been a while since 
I tinkered, but now I'm getting gobbledygook instead of English in the dropdown 
menus and dialogue boxes... At a guess I'd say the font lookups had gone askew, 
it's a JAR file that's executed so it's not relying on Windows API calls or 
anything.  David?

Howard




Re: JAM Assembler 1.13 problems?

2012-02-01 Thread david

Quoting Balor Price toberm...@waitrose.com:


Ah, well the feedback is probably my fault then as it's the only
cross-assembler I've been using for SAM stuff.  I tried PASMO and
AS8080 but so far haven't really streamlined my compile-test-debug
phases, so it was a natural choice.  I'll send you the details
off-list... :)
Howard


I've never seen JAM myself (will avoid strawberry related puns!) but  
will certainly have a look at this too when I have time!


Re: JAM Assembler 1.13 problems?

2012-02-01 Thread Balor Price
Ah.  I am a moron.  Updated from Java 6 update 21 to update 30 and the 
problem went away.


Must say, though, I would never have expected that to have been a 
problem, especially because your binaries are all JAR files instead of 
JAD midlets.  Okay I'm confused again now!


Howard


On 01-Feb-12 07:59, david brant wrote:

People do use it then, not had much in the way of feedback.

Jam Assembler does not doing anything special with the font or anything like 
that. It would be using Windows API for fonts and messages etc. i.e. anything 
standard windows stuff.

Jam Assembler not been tested on anything newer than XP though.

What version of Java is your computer using? Have you tried re loading Jam 
Assembler? I have a newer version on my computer which sorts out some project 
view issues and does method inheritance I'll upload it tonight with a bit of 
luck.

Otherwise can you send me a screen shot please.

On 1 Feb 2012, at 01:19, Balor Price wrote:



So, hmmm... while I'm fired up...

Anyone having problems with the GUI in Jam Assembler?  It's been a while since 
I tinkered, but now I'm getting gobbledygook instead of English in the dropdown 
menus and dialogue boxes... At a guess I'd say the font lookups had gone askew, 
it's a JAR file that's executed so it's not relying on Windows API calls or 
anything.  David?

Howard




Re: JAM Assembler 1.13 problems?

2012-02-01 Thread warren
On a related but slightly different note... Sometime in the near  
future, I want to get back into a fairly major SAM gaming project I  
was working on. I'm going to give JAM a go (Just quickly tested it on  
my machine running Windows 7, and seemks to work fine!). :-) I made  
the mistake of working in GamesMaster again when I started it last  
year, but I hit a bit of an annoying brick wall with it (Yes, I  
know... but it worked so well for my first few games! :-D )  
Unfortunately those limitations AREN'T because of the limitations of  
the SAM, so I don't want to compromise the game from what it could do,  
simply because of GamesMaster.


So my plan is to re-program it in Assembly. And my question is... (I  
think I may have asked this before, but for the life of me I can't  
remember, so sorry if I have!) what's the best resource for learning  
it?? ;-)


Dave, I love what you've done with Dave Invaders :-D What did you  
read for learning how to program it?


Quoting Balor Price toberm...@cookingcircle.co.uk:

Ah.  I am a moron.  Updated from Java 6 update 21 to update 30 and  
the problem went away.


Must say, though, I would never have expected that to have been a  
problem, especially because your binaries are all JAR files instead  
of JAD midlets.  Okay I'm confused again now!


Howard


On 01-Feb-12 07:59, david brant wrote:

People do use it then, not had much in the way of feedback.

Jam Assembler does not doing anything special with the font or  
anything like that. It would be using Windows API for fonts and  
messages etc. i.e. anything standard windows stuff.


Jam Assembler not been tested on anything newer than XP though.

What version of Java is your computer using? Have you tried re  
loading Jam Assembler? I have a newer version on my computer which  
sorts out some project view issues and does method inheritance I'll  
upload it tonight with a bit of luck.


Otherwise can you send me a screen shot please.

On 1 Feb 2012, at 01:19, Balor Price wrote:



So, hmmm... while I'm fired up...

Anyone having problems with the GUI in Jam Assembler?  It's been a  
while since I tinkered, but now I'm getting gobbledygook instead  
of English in the dropdown menus and dialogue boxes... At a guess  
I'd say the font lookups had gone askew, it's a JAR file that's  
executed so it's not relying on Windows API calls or anything.   
David?


Howard










Re: JAM Assembler 1.13 problems?

2012-02-01 Thread Thomas Harte
I was too young to appreciate it at the time but I think Fred had a great 
series on assembly and the Sam that flowed into the sort of topics specifically 
of interest to game writers. Has anyone converted those to a modern document 
format?

Other than that I can tell you that z80 questions tend to get answered very 
quickly and in a good amount of detail on StackOverflow though one appears only 
once every other month or so, so it's not much of a learning resource.

On 1 Feb 2012, at 10:39, war...@wdlee.co.uk wrote:

 On a related but slightly different note... Sometime in the near future, I 
 want to get back into a fairly major SAM gaming project I was working on. I'm 
 going to give JAM a go (Just quickly tested it on my machine running Windows 
 7, and seemks to work fine!). :-) I made the mistake of working in 
 GamesMaster again when I started it last year, but I hit a bit of an annoying 
 brick wall with it (Yes, I know... but it worked so well for my first few 
 games! :-D ) Unfortunately those limitations AREN'T because of the 
 limitations of the SAM, so I don't want to compromise the game from what it 
 could do, simply because of GamesMaster.
 
 So my plan is to re-program it in Assembly. And my question is... (I think I 
 may have asked this before, but for the life of me I can't remember, so sorry 
 if I have!) what's the best resource for learning it?? ;-)
 
 Dave, I love what you've done with Dave Invaders :-D What did you read for 
 learning how to program it?
 
 Quoting Balor Price toberm...@cookingcircle.co.uk:
 
 Ah.  I am a moron.  Updated from Java 6 update 21 to update 30 and the 
 problem went away.
 
 Must say, though, I would never have expected that to have been a problem, 
 especially because your binaries are all JAR files instead of JAD midlets.  
 Okay I'm confused again now!
 
 Howard
 
 
 On 01-Feb-12 07:59, david brant wrote:
 People do use it then, not had much in the way of feedback.
 
 Jam Assembler does not doing anything special with the font or anything 
 like that. It would be using Windows API for fonts and messages etc. i.e. 
 anything standard windows stuff.
 
 Jam Assembler not been tested on anything newer than XP though.
 
 What version of Java is your computer using? Have you tried re loading Jam 
 Assembler? I have a newer version on my computer which sorts out some 
 project view issues and does method inheritance I'll upload it tonight with 
 a bit of luck.
 
 Otherwise can you send me a screen shot please.
 
 On 1 Feb 2012, at 01:19, Balor Price wrote:
 
 
 So, hmmm... while I'm fired up...
 
 Anyone having problems with the GUI in Jam Assembler?  It's been a while 
 since I tinkered, but now I'm getting gobbledygook instead of English in 
 the dropdown menus and dialogue boxes... At a guess I'd say the font 
 lookups had gone askew, it's a JAR file that's executed so it's not 
 relying on Windows API calls or anything.  David?
 
 Howard
 
 
 
 
 


Re: JAM Assembler 1.13 problems?

2012-02-01 Thread Balor Price

On 01-Feb-12 10:39, war...@wdlee.co.uk wrote:
On a related but slightly different note... Sometime in the near 
future, I want to get back into a fairly major SAM gaming project I 
was working on. I'm going to give JAM a go (Just quickly tested it on 
my machine running Windows 7, and seemks to work fine!). :-) I made 
the mistake of working in GamesMaster again when I started it last 
year, but I hit a bit of an annoying brick wall with it (Yes, I 
know... but it worked so well for my first few games! :-D ) 
Unfortunately those limitations AREN'T because of the limitations of 
the SAM, so I don't want to compromise the game from what it could do, 
simply because of GamesMaster.


So my plan is to re-program it in Assembly. And my question is... (I 
think I may have asked this before, but for the life of me I can't 
remember, so sorry if I have!) what's the best resource for learning 
it?? ;-)


Dave, I love what you've done with Dave Invaders :-D What did you 
read for learning how to program it?


Quoting Balor Price toberm...@cookingcircle.co.uk:

Ah.  I am a moron.  Updated from Java 6 update 21 to update 30 and 
the problem went away.


Must say, though, I would never have expected that to have been a 
problem, especially because your binaries are all JAR files instead 
of JAD midlets.  Okay I'm confused again now!


Howard


On 01-Feb-12 07:59, david brant wrote:

People do use it then, not had much in the way of feedback.

Jam Assembler does not doing anything special with the font or 
anything like that. It would be using Windows API for fonts and 
messages etc. i.e. anything standard windows stuff.


Jam Assembler not been tested on anything newer than XP though.

What version of Java is your computer using? Have you tried re 
loading Jam Assembler? I have a newer version on my computer which 
sorts out some project view issues and does method inheritance I'll 
upload it tonight with a bit of luck.


Otherwise can you send me a screen shot please.

On 1 Feb 2012, at 01:19, Balor Price wrote:



So, hmmm... while I'm fired up...

Anyone having problems with the GUI in Jam Assembler?  It's been a 
while since I tinkered, but now I'm getting gobbledygook instead of 
English in the dropdown menus and dialogue boxes... At a guess I'd 
say the font lookups had gone askew, it's a JAR file that's 
executed so it's not relying on Windows API calls or anything.  David?


Howard










(Sorry for thread-based top-posting again, back to the bottom in my 
defence top-posting is the standard at work)


what's the best resource for learning [assembler]?? ;-)

Personal experience?  For reference, you'll need:

*The Technical Manual 
/http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=SAM+coupe+technical+manualie=utf-8oe=utf-8aq=trls=org.mozilla:en-GB:officialclient=firefox-a/

*Rodney Zaks' Programming the Z80www.z80.info/zip/zaks_book.pdf
*At least one other person to talk to, bounce ideas off, and experiment 
with.


Ideally, you'll be wanting a bound version of these three items, because 
you'll be referencing them an awful lot!


-Howard


Re: JAM Assembler 1.13 problems?

2012-02-01 Thread warren
Andrew/Balor/thomas those links and info are great! Thanks very much!  
(Finding a place with all the fred stuff is great... I've got a lot of  
them, but they're all hidden in a box somewhere lol!) Think I've got  
an 'original' copy of the tech manual that I got from FRED back in the  
old days, but handy to have the PDF too!


In a few months when I have some free time, I'm planning to get back  
into my SAM game project. :-) So keep an eye out!!



Quoting Andrew Gillen a...@joua.net:


The Fred stuff is a goldmine.

Http://Sam.speccy.cz/coding.HTML has the series I think you are  
referring to. I used some code for the define key routine in my game  
from that series.


Personally, my basis for z80 learning was from the speccy. William  
Tangs Spectrum Machine Language for the Absolute Beginner helped  
massively to  get the basic concepts, then jon cauldwell's excellent  
tutorial helped with game flow and stuff like scoring.


I wrote a smAll, simple space invaders clone on speccy before moving  
on to the sam where I did a conversion of it as my first project  
(which was to be included as a hidden extra in Dave, buy I forgot to  
put it in).


Couple that lot with the tech manual and lurking on the World of  
Spectrum development forum sponging information and it all came  
together... Slowly!




Cheers
Andrew



On 1 Feb 2012, at 11:02, Thomas Harte tomh.retros...@gmail.com wrote:

I was too young to appreciate it at the time but I think Fred had a  
great series on assembly and the Sam that flowed into the sort of  
topics specifically of interest to game writers. Has anyone  
converted those to a modern document format?


Other than that I can tell you that z80 questions tend to get  
answered very quickly and in a good amount of detail on  
StackOverflow though one appears only once every other month or so,  
so it's not much of a learning resource.


On 1 Feb 2012, at 10:39, war...@wdlee.co.uk wrote:

On a related but slightly different note... Sometime in the near  
future, I want to get back into a fairly major SAM gaming project  
I was working on. I'm going to give JAM a go (Just quickly tested  
it on my machine running Windows 7, and seemks to work fine!). :-)  
I made the mistake of working in GamesMaster again when I started  
it last year, but I hit a bit of an annoying brick wall with it  
(Yes, I know... but it worked so well for my first few games! :-D  
) Unfortunately those limitations AREN'T because of the  
limitations of the SAM, so I don't want to compromise the game  
from what it could do, simply because of GamesMaster.


So my plan is to re-program it in Assembly. And my question is...  
(I think I may have asked this before, but for the life of me I  
can't remember, so sorry if I have!) what's the best resource for  
learning it?? ;-)


Dave, I love what you've done with Dave Invaders :-D What did  
you read for learning how to program it?


Quoting Balor Price toberm...@cookingcircle.co.uk:

Ah.  I am a moron.  Updated from Java 6 update 21 to update 30  
and the problem went away.


Must say, though, I would never have expected that to have been a  
problem, especially because your binaries are all JAR files  
instead of JAD midlets.  Okay I'm confused again now!


Howard


On 01-Feb-12 07:59, david brant wrote:

People do use it then, not had much in the way of feedback.

Jam Assembler does not doing anything special with the font or  
anything like that. It would be using Windows API for fonts and  
messages etc. i.e. anything standard windows stuff.


Jam Assembler not been tested on anything newer than XP though.

What version of Java is your computer using? Have you tried re  
loading Jam Assembler? I have a newer version on my computer  
which sorts out some project view issues and does method  
inheritance I'll upload it tonight with a bit of luck.


Otherwise can you send me a screen shot please.

On 1 Feb 2012, at 01:19, Balor Price wrote:



So, hmmm... while I'm fired up...

Anyone having problems with the GUI in Jam Assembler?  It's  
been a while since I tinkered, but now I'm getting gobbledygook  
instead of English in the dropdown menus and dialogue boxes...  
At a guess I'd say the font lookups had gone askew, it's a JAR  
file that's executed so it's not relying on Windows API calls  
or anything.  David?


Howard
















JAM Assembler 1.13 problems?

2012-01-31 Thread Balor Price



So, hmmm... while I'm fired up...

Anyone having problems with the GUI in Jam Assembler?  It's been a while 
since I tinkered, but now I'm getting gobbledygook instead of English in 
the dropdown menus and dialogue boxes... At a guess I'd say the font 
lookups had gone askew, it's a JAR file that's executed so it's not 
relying on Windows API calls or anything.  David?


Howard