Hello Everyone,
Im very new to the programming the NES Console. After Extensive serching on the internet. I have Found no information on how to install NESASM. Im running an XP right now but have tried on a 98 without sucess. Ive tried the MagicKit and everytime i run the app an MS-DOS comes up momentarly. Same thing happens when i try and run the bob frost version with Nbasic. Well here are my questions?
1. WHat hell is MS-DOS? Does the NESASM have its own GUI or is it in DOS style and do i have to type commands on the prompt to use it?
2. What locations do i have to install the Magickit or NESASM in?
3. On the Bob Frost Website it says the Nbasic version needs Cygwin.dll to run. Where do i install this file?
4. What are bin win32 directories??
5. Can i compile it in BloodShed C/C++ Assembler, using the sources(e.g. XXXXX.h, XXXXX.c)
6. HOw can i run the NESASM in an 6502sdk?
I know these are alot of questions, but hopfully to the experiance it is nothing. Some one Please help me ive been reading on 6502 ASsembly and NES Documents for Quite sometime and i want to experimanet and learn more by running my own code.
THanks,
EL
- NESAsm isn't a very good assembler.
- I'm not sure if I undertand it proprely, but if you don't know what MS-DOS is I can do nothing for you.
NESAsm doesn't need to be "installed" or anything. Its a raw DOS programm. Run it through a DOS command window. If you have Windows, you have DOS anyway. You can get it from "Start -> Programms -> Accesories".
So What assembler do you use? Can you suggest something in an GUI environment, for i have no experiance with a DOS environment. the 6505sdk has a GUI support. But i keep running into errors when i run the famous Junkdemo.ams? HOw would i import/export .chr files and such?
So how about Neshla?
How i "install" it?
It comes with these files:
neshla-20050417-src-win32
neshla-20050417-bin-win32
What does this mean: bin-win32, src-win32?
Sorry So many questions i just hope someone out there can help me with there expertice. Regardless of how easy it, it pretty freakin confusing to me?
Those files are most probably compressed files, with "bin" = binary files (so the programm) and "scr" = source, so the code.
I use WLA-DX. A lot of people seems to prefer CA65. Nesasm is okay if you're a very begginer, but keep in mind it is an assembler that target beginers.
I think all of these but HLA runs under dos. For an unknown reason, a lot of freewere is only available under DOS. Maybe the don't want to pay Visual C++ for windows or whatever.
WHere do i extract the bin files and scr files?
I asked these questions when I first stepped into the world of programming the NES. It took me like 3 months to realize that you don't install NESASM, or any 6502 assembler, pretty much. And it also took me that long to realize that the DOS window isn't supposed to stay up for more than half a second. Open the program in the command prompt, then when you have some NESASM source code, type: nesasm something.asm , and it will assemble. Something.asm of course, being whatever the name of the NESASM source code is.
nineTENdo: Before you reply to this topic, please look at
this set of Google results and read one of the pages to which it links.
The fact is that it is up to everyone to organize their computer. You can store your files where you want in your harddisk. Most commercial softwares need particular system instalation and have a default repertory to install in (usually C:\program files\...) but you usually can change this to another repertory.
Myself, I put all big programms in the "program files" repertory, and all small ones have their own repertory or set of repertories.
I know that, I installed about 15 programms on my new computer today
Command Prompt != DOS. Just because a program operates through a console and uses a command prompt doesn't make it a DOS program. Many Windows (and Linux, BSD, etc for that matter) programs operate through a command prompt -- that doesn't mean they're all DOS programs.
That aside -- rather than opening up a command prompt and typing out a bunch of crap every time you want to assemble something, you might want to get familiar with creating batch files. I don't know a whole lot about them myself -- just the bare minimum to assemble stuff.
Adding on to Celius' example... rather than opening the command prompt and typing that in every time -- open up notepad or another plain text editor and type that line into notepad -- then save it as "assemble.bat" or something of that sort. Make sure you actually save it as "*.bat" and not "*.bat.txt" (notepad might automatically append the .txt extension) -- and put that ni the same folder as your assembler and source files. Then when you want to assemble, simply double-click on the .bat file and it will do all the command-prompt stuff for you. If you want the window to remain open so you can see any errors or stuff the assembler spit out, simply put "pause" on a new line in the bottom on the .bat file.
First of all, make sure that "Hide file extensions" is turned off. This will make it easier to create and recognize batch files and other specialized text files while also making it easier to recognize executable trojans. If you haven't already done this, here are instructions for the U.S. English version of Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional (which may differ per operating system):
- Start > Settings > Control Panel > Folder Options
- Select the View pane.
- In Advanced Settings, under Files and Folders, make sure that "Hide file extensions for known file types" is unchecked.
Pedants note: I linked to "DOS tutorial" because the basics of the Windows command prompt are similar enough to those of PC DOS and MS-DOS, even though the NT command prompt of Windows 2000 and Windows XP do not run on top of DOS, and there are more well-known DOS tutorials than Windows NT command prompt tutorials.
I always have a .bat file to assemble my games. It's so much easier. But you always have to make sure you put "pause" at the end, so you can see how your game assembles. I just suggested the command prompt for beggining assembly.
Batch files are good.
But once your project gets to a certain level of complexity, on forum.gbadev.org they even recommend against using batch files, instead preferring to make a script for GNU Make.
OK so let me get this straight. NESASM is not really GUI Supported and it merly assembles all my files im using (.CHR,.ASM) into a final .NES file. And i simply write my code using NotePAD or Word PAD.
P.S. i noticed on the Junkdemo there only two files JUnkdemo.asm and JUnkdemo.chr. In the future as my games get more complex with there be any more files to add.
ALso is there a way to change the command prompt Header (C:\Documents and Settings\(computername)>) So that i dont have to put all my files in that folder, and i can have them in my own directories. I think i can do it in 98 but im running and XP right now for the internet.
nineTENdo wrote:
In the future as my games get more complex with there be any more files to add.
It really depends. But usually, when games get larger and you start using banswitching it is not uncommon that different sets of graphics and data are stored on separate files. But it's really up to the programmer.
nineTENdo wrote:
ALso is there a way to change the command prompt Header (C:\Documents and Settings\(computername)>) So that i dont have to put all my files in that folder, and i can have them in my own directories.
You use the "CD" (change directory) command to move through folders. If you type "CD" you'll be sent to the root of that drive (in this case, dive C:), and the prompt will now be "C:\>" from there you can just type something like "CD Programming\NES\NESASM" and you'll be inside that directory/folder (C:\Programming\NES\NESASM). If you want to move to a different drive, just use it's letter followed by colons, like this "D:". You can navigate through all the folders and drives like this.
EDIT: You can also use the "CD" command to enter a folder at once. For example if you are at "C:\>" you can type "CD Programming" then "CD NES" and finally "CD NESASM". You can also move back one folder by typing "CD..". For example, if you are inside the folder "C:\Programming\NES>" and type "CD.." you'll be sent to "C:\Programming>", and not to "C:\>".
Well it's easier to have your files in the same directory, but probably a better idea would be to have them in different ones like you said. But you don't NEED to incbin any files if you don't want. You can do db statements to define every byte in your code. Why you would want to define every byte instead of incbining a CHR file, I don't know. But you'll probably want to be incbining alot as you progress in your code. And also, one picky lame thing I'd like to just mention, please don't double-post. Copy the text from the old post into notepad, delete the old post, make a new post, paste the text from the old post into the new post, and continue off of that one. Okay? Sorry, just takes up thread space, and is kind of annoying.
Celius wrote:
Copy the text from the old post into notepad, delete the old post, make a new post, paste the text from the old post into the new post, and continue off of that one. Okay?
Or you know... just edit the original post.
Disch wrote:
Or you know... just edit the original post.
If you edit a post that's two days old, it'll get ignored.
really?
But you can still delete it?
*shrugs*
Yeah, the one thing I hate is that you never know when someone edits a post, so it's always best to just make a new post so everyone will see.