A85: TI Assembler on TI
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A85: TI Assembler on TI
I have a couple ideas/suggestions/questions about putting an assembly compiler
on a TI. First of all, the whole thing would of course be very difficult, but
it may be possible.
First it makes perfect sense for the assembly table to be in the code, but that
is obvious. What if compression were used, though. I'm sure a basic
compression routine could be used to get the entire table down to about 8K.
Granted, that is a lot of space, but if you want to use your TI for development
on the road, it would be worth it.
However, the source would take tons of space. What if it was compiled on the
fly though? As you change lines, it leaves the code on the screen, but the
storage could be actual compiled code. That would certainly decrease the
space needed for source.
One problem I could see for the above logic is that database data would be
recognized as code. Given that, there are two solutions as I see it. One is
to use a routine which tries to recognize whether you are looking at code or
data. The other is to Pseudo-Compile it instead if actually compiling it.
Maybe some unused byte could stand for (Start Data) and another stand for
(Stop Data).
The only other problem I see is labels. That could be solved with the pseudo-
coding though. There, a byte stands for (Start Label) and (Stop Label).
Also, if an expander is used and the compiler is set to look on it for a
seperate lookup table for the data, it may turn out to be very feasible.
Either way, give me some feedback on whether I am starting on an impossible
mission, or that I may succeed. I'd appreciate other pointers too.
-Paul Hounshell
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