Effectus 0.5.3

October 3, 2020 · View on GitHub

================== Effectus 0.5.3

This is new version of Effectus, done from scratch. The most important thing to consider was to emulate Action! language as close as possible. The main priority is to handle Action! statements (declarations, commands, assignments...) properly and to support multi-line statements as well.

In new version the source code is generated by using Mad Pascal cross-compiler, which is further compiled to binary code with Mad Assembler (Mads). These amazing tools were created by Tomasz Biela (Tebe).

The steps are as follows:

  • Action! code is parsed and appropriate Mad Pascal source code listing is generated
  • Mad Pascal compiles this code to *.a65 file prepared for compilation by Mad Assembler
  • Mad Assembler compiles .a65 file to final binary code (.xex by default)

examples directory includes listing examples to demonstrate available features of Effectus language, which can be basis for your further development and experimentation.

My special thanks and credits go to:

  • Tomasz Biela (Tebe), author of Mad Pascal and Mad Assembler (Mads). He made this all possible!
  • Zbyti, who helps me with developing, fixing bugs, Linux distribution compilation and providing me with many listing examples and benchmark test examples. And laughs... :)
  • Mariusz Buk for hosting original project on GitHub with MacOs compilation
  • All others not mentioned here, who help me with suggestions, testing, etc.

What is supported?

Data types

BYTE, CHAR, INT, CARD

Extended data type

BYTE ARRAY, CARD ARRAY, POINTER SBYTE ARRAY as temporary solution for BYTE ARRAY string definitions

  • Variable memory address assignment

    Examples: BYTE CH=764, COL=710, BYTE GRACTL=$D01D

  • TYPE declaration

    TYPE REC = [ BYTE day, month CARD year BYTE height ]

  • Declaring array variables pointing to memory address

    BYTE ARRAY arrD=28000 CARD ARRAY arr=$8000

Conditions and branches

  • IF/THEN/ELSE/ELSEIF condition statements
  • FOR, WHILE, DO, UNTIL, OD branch statements
  • infinite loops using DO OD
  • EXIT statement for unconditional exit from the current condition or loop

Graphics

PROCedures: GRAPHICS, PLOT, DRAWTO, FILL, LOCATE Global variable Color for setting the color to draw on screen

Sound

PROCedures: SOUND, SNDRST

INCLUDE files

Files can be included, starting in the same directory as main compiled listing code. Currently one level of included files is supported. This means only main listing program can read files with INCLUDE directive, but not any other files, even if they have this directive called in.

String manipulation

PROCedures: STRB, STRC, STRI, SCOPY, SCOPYS, SASSIGN, INPUTS, PRINT, PRINTE, PRINTB, PRINTBE, PRINTI, PRINTIE, PRINTC, PRINTCE, PRINTF, PUT, PUTE

FUNCtions: GETD, INPUTB, INPUTC, INPUTI, SCOMPARE, VALB, VALC, VALI

Arithmetic manipulation

Bitwise manipulation

Bitwise/logical operators: AND (&), OR (%), XOR (!), LSH (left shift), RSH (right shift)

Data manipulation

PROCedures: ZERO, SETBLOCK, MOVEBLOCK

DEFINE declaration (constant substitutions for any statement)

Device I/O support

PROCedures: OPEN, CLOSE, PUTD, PUTDE, PRINTD, PRINTDE, XIO, PRINTBD, PRINTBDE, PRINTCD, PRINTCDE, PRINTID, PRINTIDE, INPUTSD, INPUTMD

FUNCtions: INPUTBD, INPUTCD, INPUTID

  • Printing to text modes by using PrintD and PrintDE is allowed

Inline machine language

  • Support for inline machine language anywhere in the body of code listing (after variable declaration)

    Examples: [A9\21$8D$02C6$060][60] [ A9$90 $3E$02C6 $0 $60 ]

  • PROCedure machine language support

  • FUNCtion machine language support

    Example:

    PROC TEST=*(BYTE CURSOR,BACK,BORDER,X,Y,UPDOWN) [ $8E 710 ; BACKGROUND COLOR $8C 712 ; BORDER COLOR $8D 752 ; CURSOR VISIBILITY A5A5 A5 $8D 755 ; CHARACTERS UPSIDE DOWN? A5A5 A3 $8D 85 0 ; COLUMN FOR TEXT A5A5 A4 $8D 84 0 ; ROW FOR TEXT $60]

You can send parameters to machine language routines. The compiler stores parameters using A, X and Y registers, then zero-page addresses from A3toA3 to AF are used.

Address nth byte of parameters

A register 1st X register 2nd Y register 3rd A34thA3 4th A4 5th : : : : $AF 16th

System manipulation

PROCedures: POKE, POKEC

PROCedures: PEEK, PEEKC

Extra, non-standard statements

  • Support for Mad Pascal with directive PAS {}

    Example:
    PAS { repeat until keypressed; for i := 0 to 14 do begin SayHelloProc; Delay(120); end; }

    Calling PROCedures and FUNCtions, implemented in Effectus, must include appropriate string extension in PAS {} block, in particular, Proc extension for PROCedures and Func extension for FUNCtions. Variables or any other entities can be interchanged between Effectus and PAS {} block of code.

  • Support for Mad Assembler with directive ASM {}

    Example: ASM { lda #0 sta 710 }

  • ODFOR and ODWHILE loop directives, which can be used as substitutions for enclosing OD directive to close FOR and WHILE loop blocks as there are some issues when using FOR and WHILE statements inside ELSE and ELSEIF condition blocks

Misc

  • Additional PROCedures: POSITION, SETCOLOR

  • Aditional FUNCtions: RAND, STICK, STRIG, Paddle, PTrig

  • Custom PROCedures and FUNCtions are supported (parameters can be mixture of any scalar data type: BYTE, CARD, INT, CHAR)

  • Memory address calls through PROCedures are supported (OS calls can be accomplished)

    Examples: ; Scroll screen PROC SCROLL=F7F7();Cassette−beepsoundPROCBEEPWAIT=F7F7() ; Cassette-beep sound PROC BEEPWAIT=FDFC(BYTE times)

Effectus directory structure

  • root directory: program executables, license documents and other supporting files
  • examples: Action!/Effectus examples
  • base: Mad Assembler library directory
  • lib: Mad Pascal library directory

Command prompt execution

effectus

Available options: -i Information about declared variables, PROCedures, FUNCtions and DEFINE constants -o: Binary file extension -c Clear summarized log file -t Effectus only translate source to Mad Pascal -z Variable zero page address -zb BYTE variable zero page address -zw CARD (word) variable zero page address -zp Pointer (PByte) zero page address

  • Effectus/Action! source code listing can reside on any path and resulting code is also generated there

  • Log files are created on compile time

Missing features and bug issues

You can read about missing features and bug issues in additional file dev_log.txt!

Written by Bostjan Gorisek from Slovenia References: https://github.com/mariusz-buk/effectus http://freeweb.siol.net/diomedes/effectus/ https://atariage.com/forums/topic/291426-effectus-action-cross-compiler-using-mad-assembler-mads/ https://atariage.com/forums/topic/306222-effectus-suggestions-and-bug-reports/

Mad Pascal and MAD Assembler (MADS) are products written by Tomasz Biela (Tebe) from Poland References: http://mads.atari8.info/ https://github.com/tebe6502/Mad-Pascal https://github.com/tebe6502/Mad-Assembler