LISA assembler

Steven Weyhrich

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May 10, 2013, 7:35:29 PM5/10/13

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This page shows a scan (or photo) of the LISA assembler by Randy Hyde:

http://programma.applearchives.com/history/lisa-v26.html

Does anyone out there have a better size scan of this (or one of the earlier LISA versions)? One that I could use in my book?

Antoine Vignau

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May 11, 2013, 1:16:29 AM5/11/13

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Yes, I have.
Scan due tomorrow...
Av

winston...@yahoo.com

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May 11, 2013, 1:38:04 AM5/11/13

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Interesting read. Wrong about it being the first or only editor that did syntax checking.
The TI-99 MiniMemory Line-by-Line assembler did that, and it did it well. Tab to the next field and if something in the last field was wrong, you'd know instantly.
All in 1982.
But I won't argue for its speed. That depends on the person typing.

Michael J. Mahon

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May 11, 2013, 3:06:37 AM5/11/13

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I also found the writeup interesting.

The assembler speed of 30,000 lines per minute means that each line
required an average of about 300-400 instructions to assemble.

This suggests that the source being assembled was already in tokenized form
in memory, and that it was likely a single-pass assembler.

If the editor constructed the symbol table and replaced symbols with their
table pointers, then such a speed seems quite achievable. Since the editor
was interactive, it would have to do symbol lookups in any case.

I suspect that loading a large source file in text format would take a
little time, but perhaps LISA normally stored source files as token strings
plus a symbol table--a memory image of its internal data structures.

-michael - NadaNet 3.1 and AppleCrate II: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon

D Finnigan

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May 11, 2013, 8:42:52 AM5/11/13

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Michael J. Mahon wrote:
> "winston...@yahoo.com" <winston...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Interesting read. Wrong about it being the first or only editor that did
>> syntax checking.
>> The TI-99 MiniMemory Line-by-Line assembler did that, and it did it well.
>> Tab to the next field and if something in the last field was wrong, you'd
>> know instantly.
>> All in 1982.
>> But I won't argue for its speed. That depends on the person typing.
>
> I also found the writeup interesting.
>
> The assembler speed of 30,000 lines per minute means that each line
> required an average of about 300-400 instructions to assemble.
>
> This suggests that the source being assembled was already in tokenized
> form
> in memory, and that it was likely a single-pass assembler.

Yes, that's the secret to LISA's speed. Mr. Hyde himself explained that LISA
does some pre-processing once each line is entered that results in faster
assembly times.

http://macgui.com/usenet/search.php?q=lisa+tokenization+-faqs
http://macgui.com/usenet/?group=1&id=39315

--
]DF$
Apple II Book: http://macgui.com/newa2guide/
Usenet: http://macgui.com/usenet/ <-- get posts by email!
Apple II Web & Blog hosting: http://a2hq.com/

Steven Weyhrich

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May 12, 2013, 9:37:09 AM5/12/13

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Well, the first assembler for the Apple II that did syntax checking.

Wait, there were OTHER computers besides the Apple II ??

Steven Weyhrich

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May 12, 2013, 9:38:40 AM5/12/13

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Antoine, you must have enough Apple II stuff to make your OWN Apple Pop-up Museum!

Antoine Vignau

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May 12, 2013, 10:11:12 AM5/12/13

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Le dimanche 12 mai 2013 15:38:40 UTC+2, Steven Weyhrich a écrit :
> Antoine, you must have enough Apple II stuff to make your OWN Apple Pop-up Museum!

Nope, I own documentations/manuals/diskettes but nothing more, I am not in the HW field :-)

You have PM...
Antoine

Bill Buckels

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May 12, 2013, 7:19:40 PM5/12/13

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"Steven Weyhrich" <a2hi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Well, the first assembler for the Apple II that did syntax checking.

The Aztec C II version 1 across-assembler which ran in MS-DOS as part of the
Aztec C development framework not only did syntax checking on 6502
assembler, but the C compiler provided syntax checking for the C language,
and then compiled everything to assembler in the first pass. That was in
1982 as well. I am just putting the finishing touches on a modern
distribution for this compiler and then will make it available on the Aztec
C Website (as usual)

http://www.aztecmuseum.ca

I also have the same cross-assembler for the Commodore 64 which ran in
MS-DOS. That's already there, as well as a native mode version of the Apple
II compiler and assembler of the same vintage, as well as the CP/M 80
version of this-all...

> Wait, there were OTHER computers besides the Apple II ??

Never mind that! Here's a link to my Randy Hyde Page... is there anything
here you can use?

http://www.appleoldies.ca/anix/index.htm

Bill