What are the differences between "Merlin 128" and "Buddy
Assembler 128"? I have read some really good reviews
about Merlin, but don't know anything about Buddy.
Is there any reason to prefer one over the other?
Someone here mentioned that they used MERLIN 64.
Any 64 assembler can assemble 128 machine code,
or even APPLE or ATARI code as long as the
processor uses the INTEL 6500 instruction set.
I have no experience with MERLIN and only minimal experience
with an old version of BUDDY 128 a few years (decades?) ago. My
version of BUDDY was bundled with a C language compiler as Mr.
Randall stated. The only reasons why I never ported myself over
to BUDDY was inertia, all my code was in MADS and I couldn't find
a way to produce symbolic cross reference maps from BUDDY source
code. Cross reference maps are now passe, they were not even
mentioned in the C course I took at the community college in the
late 1990s. I am sooo old that I desparately depend on X-MAPS.
I tinker with MADS whenever somebody posts an assembly language
problem here. My MADS system is customized so that machine
code can be saved from memory as it's being assembled. I also
implemented a modual that allows access to the C128 numeric
keypad and the RGB screen while in C64 mode. You can get
MADS by downloading the COMMODORE ASSEMBLER from :
http://www.haddewig.de/nogames64/tools.html
Each WEB site modual is one byte longer than
the corresponding modual on my original system
disk. MADS instructions are in the first entry at :
http://project64.c64.org/misc/index.html> :)