🕹️ The Breadbox Has a Compiler Now

RETRO MAGIC writes a listing. That was the desk. This is the toolbox that sits under it.

RETRO-Toolchain is JavaScript, because I am not asking anyone to install a cross-compiler from 1998 before the first line. Node runs it. No packages. One CPU table, one memory map, one runtime. The assembler is the 6510. C, Pascal, and BASIC all come out as a PRG through that assembler. LOAD and RUN. The same file runs in VICE.

The C is the integer kind. No float, because the breadbox did not grow a math coprocessor while I was typing. Pascal is the integer kind too. BASIC keeps the whole variable name, which stock C64 BASIC refused to do. LONGNAME and LONGNAMES are different. That one still feels like cheating, and I am keeping it.

The game is Space Invaders, in C, so a person can see the toolchain do something other than paint a border. A and D move the cannon. Comma and period do the same. Space fires. One shot at a time. Thirty-two invaders, three lives, then the next wave is a little faster.

cd c64
./play.sh

c64 on this machine is VICE x64sc. ./play.sh --build writes examples/invaders.prg and leaves the window alone. Any VICE build can take that file with -autostart.

The Apple II and the TI-99 get the same shape of toolbox after the breadbox has had two passes. Not this week. I am not changing the CPU until this one has sat still for a minute.

• RETRO-Toolchain — assembler, C, Pascal, BASIC
• RETRO MAGIC — the listing, if you still want the script to look like MAGIC
• Emoji Games — a cave, if the breadbox can wait

You’re welcome. Or sorry. Depends on whether you still own a joystick.