The Single-Board 6502

Eric Rehnke

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I have a difficult time keeping up with this company at times. They're surely not resting on their past accomplishments.

The first thing they've done is add conditional assembly directives to their already formidable 2-pass, disk-based assembler.

Besides the conditional assembly directives. IFZ (IFZERO), .IFN (IFNOTZERO), and .EIF (ENDIF), there are other special directives like .SOR (SORT SYMBOL TABLE), and .COV (INSTRUCTION COUNT) which enable the HDE Assembler to offer capability approaching that of the 6502 Cross Assembler available on time-sharing systems. HDE's Assembler actually comes out on top in the area of conditional assembly (that capability is not available in the Cross Assembler). The only noticeable features of the Cross Assembler which aren't available in the HDE counterpart are the symbol table cross referencing facility and the macro pre-processor. As soon as HDE adds these capabilities to their system (and they're in the works, according to Hudson Digital Electronics), they will have even more features than the Cross Assembler.

Besides that, HDE added the CHAINING function to their already much enhanced version of MICROSOFT Basic. This lets you run Basic programs which are actually too large to fit into your memory. According to HDE, a disk file system is next on the list for their not-so-basic BASIC.

I've been playing with the new conditional assembler for several days, their enhanced Basic for about a month, and continue to be impressed with the software (and hardware) this company produces.

As you may know, I have a KIM system with a couple of full-size HDE floppies and can whole-heartedly recommend this company's stuff to anyone who wants a darn good 6502 development system. (HDE, POB 120, Allamuchy, NJ 07820 PHONE 201-362-6574)