Mad Pascal (opens in new tab)

(github.com)

70 pointschaimanmeow2y ago24 comments

24 comments

18 comments · 5 top-level

Holy shit, that's some mad retro dev.

Now if we can just get a clone of Borland C++/TASM/Profiler/Debugger on 6502. >:-)

I spoke too soon, an HNer probably wrote it already in Rust.

Edit: Wikipedia just made the connection in my mind that many 1978-1990-era consumer computing and gaming things were all "6800 lite".

- Acorn Atom, Electron

- Apple I, II, IIe

- Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, 800, Lynx

- Baby! 1

- BBC Master, Micro

- Commodore PET, VIC-20, 64 (C-64), 128

- Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) / Family Computer (Famicom) (JP)

- Ohio Scientific Challenger 4P

- Orao

- Oric-1

- Oric Atmos

- TurboGrafx-16 ! :D

- Bender's brain ;)

Btw, here's a 100 MHz 65C02 compatible. https://hackaday.com/2021/10/15/heres-a-100-mhz-pin-compatib...

AnimalMuppet2y ago

Ohio Scientific. There's a name I haven't heard in a while...

Cosi11252y ago

Maybe not TASM, but Mad Pascal has a sister project called MADS [1]

[1] https://github.com/tebe6502/Mad-Assembler

p0w3n3d2y ago

Nes was 6502

NikkiA2y ago

I think their point was that the 6502 was '6800-lite', as all the systems they listed were (primarily - some of them had a z80 co-processor/option) 6502

1 more reply

acyou2y ago· 3 in thread

Interesting project title. Pascal being the French scientist and philosopher who came up with a good chunk of chemistry and was ultimately driven insane by trying to reconcile too many incompatible beliefs in his mind, and rejecting too few (religion, orthodoxy, science, formal logic and reason).

gjm112y ago

I'd like to see some evidence that he was ultimately driven insane by trying to reconcile too many incompatible beliefs; I have never heard that before and am not convinced it's true. (He certainly seems to have been something of a religious fanatic in his later years, but that isn't the same thing.)

JohnFen2y ago

Psychoanalyzing people is always error-prone. Even more so if done by amateurs. And even more than that if done to people we don't know. And even more than that if they're people from history.

dexwiz2y ago

Or maybe heavy metal poisoning. Chemistry can be dangerous.

anta402y ago· 3 in thread

Interesting stuff. Perhaps I can use this to learn retro game programming with Pascal. So the 1st question: how to build the compiler?

I'm still navigating the github repo and didn't find any specific readme/makefile. Perhaps I missed something...

pjmlp2y ago

It provides a binary already compiled on bin folder.

Also most likely fpc src/mp.pas takes care of compiling everything.

mmphosis2y ago

Thanks.

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tebe6502/Mad-Pascal/master...

  wc mp.pas 
  52411  186123 1638175 mp.pas

I see references to cc65—hopefully this is not needed. Perhaps, it uses features from the macro assembler ca65.

1 more reply

anta402y ago

I'm on macOS, so gotta build the thing from source since there's no mac binary on it.

And fpc src/mp.pas produced some errors. Oh well. Gotta check at weekend.

1 more reply

justin662y ago· 3 in thread

Is there anything about this compiler that keeps it from supporting the older Atari 8-bit machines? It's curious that it lists support for "Atari XE/XL."

Cosi11252y ago

"Atari XE/XL" as in "Atari 8-bit". The XEs/XLs were way more popular in Poland than the 400s/800s.

chaimanmeowOP2y ago

800 and even the 400 were mighty expensive. They arrived slightly before 1980 and this was the very start of the home computer era. The price was sky high, and it took a few years for the XL and the price wars with Commodore to make home computing truly affordable for the masses.

The Polish continued to buy 8-bit XE's when the rest of the first world was moving to 16-bit in the early 90s (68000, 286). They weren't missing out on much in my opinion; I think 16-bit for both computing and consoles didn't add much. Once the 386sx arrived it made the PC truly affordable and capable; the software system was still 16-bit DOS/Win3, and these PC's were ready and waiting for 32-bit software, which with the birth of Linux and BSD catapulted the PC into the true computing age.

justin662y ago

Perhaps I chose my words carelessly, but I was asking if the compiler supports the older Atari 8-bit machines as well as the newer ones that are listed.

1 more reply

chaimanmeowOP2y ago

An impressive compiler project which is used for retro title releases such as Star Vagrant and Block Attack.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

24 comments

18 comments · 5 top-level

1letterunixname2y ago· 4 in thread

Holy shit, that's some mad retro dev.

Now if we can just get a clone of Borland C++/TASM/Profiler/Debugger on 6502. >:-)

I spoke too soon, an HNer probably wrote it already in Rust.

Edit: Wikipedia just made the connection in my mind that many 1978-1990-era consumer computing and gaming things were all "6800 lite".

- Acorn Atom, Electron

- Apple I, II, IIe

- Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, 800, Lynx

- Baby! 1

- BBC Master, Micro

- Commodore PET, VIC-20, 64 (C-64), 128

- Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) / Family Computer (Famicom) (JP)

- Ohio Scientific Challenger 4P

- Orao

- Oric-1

- Oric Atmos

- TurboGrafx-16 ! :D

- Bender's brain ;)

Btw, here's a 100 MHz 65C02 compatible. https://hackaday.com/2021/10/15/heres-a-100-mhz-pin-compatib...

AnimalMuppet2y ago

Ohio Scientific. There's a name I haven't heard in a while...

Cosi11252y ago

Maybe not TASM, but Mad Pascal has a sister project called MADS [1]

[1] https://github.com/tebe6502/Mad-Assembler

p0w3n3d2y ago

Nes was 6502

NikkiA2y ago

I think their point was that the 6502 was '6800-lite', as all the systems they listed were (primarily - some of them had a z80 co-processor/option) 6502

1 more reply

acyou2y ago· 3 in thread

gjm112y ago

JohnFen2y ago

Psychoanalyzing people is always error-prone. Even more so if done by amateurs. And even more than that if done to people we don't know. And even more than that if they're people from history.

dexwiz2y ago

Or maybe heavy metal poisoning. Chemistry can be dangerous.

anta402y ago· 3 in thread

Interesting stuff. Perhaps I can use this to learn retro game programming with Pascal. So the 1st question: how to build the compiler?

I'm still navigating the github repo and didn't find any specific readme/makefile. Perhaps I missed something...

pjmlp2y ago

It provides a binary already compiled on bin folder.

Also most likely fpc src/mp.pas takes care of compiling everything.

mmphosis2y ago

Thanks.

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tebe6502/Mad-Pascal/master...

  wc mp.pas 
  52411  186123 1638175 mp.pas

I see references to cc65—hopefully this is not needed. Perhaps, it uses features from the macro assembler ca65.

1 more reply

anta402y ago

I'm on macOS, so gotta build the thing from source since there's no mac binary on it.

And fpc src/mp.pas produced some errors. Oh well. Gotta check at weekend.

1 more reply

justin662y ago· 3 in thread

Is there anything about this compiler that keeps it from supporting the older Atari 8-bit machines? It's curious that it lists support for "Atari XE/XL."

Cosi11252y ago

"Atari XE/XL" as in "Atari 8-bit". The XEs/XLs were way more popular in Poland than the 400s/800s.

chaimanmeowOP2y ago

justin662y ago

Perhaps I chose my words carelessly, but I was asking if the compiler supports the older Atari 8-bit machines as well as the newer ones that are listed.

1 more reply

chaimanmeowOP2y ago

An impressive compiler project which is used for retro title releases such as Star Vagrant and Block Attack.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse