Day 8: Z80 Assembly in CP/M

I need to find a Z80 assembler that runs in CP/M (if such a thing exists), and I need to figure out how to get it onto my RC2014 that’s now running ROMWBW.

B:XM.COM is Xmodem, a popular tool for copying files via the serial port.  REMEMBER B: DRIVE IS READ ONLY! You have to write to another drive, like C: (ask me how many times I tried to XM to B: drive… ).

Xmodem is slllloooow, and for whatever reason, my serial terminal program doesn’t always initiate the transfer correctly (or it’s on the RC2014 side, who knows… )

As far as compiler implementations, there seems to be a few:

ZMAC – there’s a lot going on there, lots of files & libraries across multiple user directories.. gonna hold off on that one for now.

ZSM – This looks short, sweet & to the point.  Lets start there.  ZEN is also listed on that same site, maybe worth a look.  There’s a more recent version on the gitub page.

Z80ASM – found here

There’s a whole thread about it here

Other things I need to look into to make this machine a little more user friendly:

  • How can I add more drives?  ROMWBW works a lot different than the vanilla implementation.
  • How can I customize ZDE, or give it a start up macro file to fix a few things:
    • Don’t want to see CR’s as ‘>’ = ^OD
    • Set right margin to 80 = ^OR80
    • Set tab additional tab at columns 26 & 31 = ^OI26 & ^OI31
    • Cycle quiet (helps unstick the header on my physical terminal) ^OQ ^OQ
  • do I need a different debugger if I’m using Z80 mnemonics?

I’m getting nowhere with ZSM. No matter what I type I get “BAD LOAD”.  There seems to be a newer version here, but I’m fucking done with this nonsense for today.

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