`xa` (`xa65`)

xa is Andre Fachat's open-source 6502 cross assembler. I, Cameron Kaiser (ckaiser@floodgap.com), am the current maintainer, and bug reports and questions should now go to me.

xa is Copyright © 1989-2007, André Fachat, Jolse Maginnis, David Weinehall and Cameron Kaiser. All rights reserved. Additional contributors: Fabien Nuñez, Mikkel Holm Olsen. xa is distributed under the GNU Public License v2. The current maintainer is Cameron Kaiser.

For a complete list of available files and distributions, check the dists/ directory.

For other Floodgap-maintained packages, see the Floodgap Software listing.

What is `xa`?

xa is a high-speed, two-pass portable cross-assembler. It understands mnemonics and generates code for NMOS 6502s (such as 6502A, 6504, 6507, 6510, 7501, 8500, 8501, 8502 ...), CMOS 6502s (65C02 and Rockwell R65C02) and the 65816.

Key amongst its features:

C-like preprocessor (and understands cpp for additional feature support)
rich expression syntax
supports o65 relocatable objects with a full linker and relocation suite, as well as "bare" plain binary object files
block structure for label scoping

xa's eventual companion disassembler is dxa, a moderately hacked-up version of Marko Mäkelä's d65 disassembler. This is still alpha and is available as a separate distribution until it is stabilized enough to be part of the xa suite.

Version 2.3.3 (2 June 2007)

xa 2.3.3 is released. This is a maintenance release only with enhancements for other compilation environments, so it is being supported simultaneously with 2.3.2.

xa-2.3.3.tar.gz

For Amiga users, I still offer xa-2.1.4f-amiga.lha with the 2.1.4f Amiga binaries, as well as the "smakefiles" and "SCOPTIONS" files to compile under SAS/C. This was provided by Pasi Ojala. Please note that this version is not supported. If you want to browse other prior versions, look in dists/unsupported/. Please do not send bug reports in about these versions.

xa should compile out of the box on just about any Unix or Unixy thing, and will probably compile on other systems that support ANSI C as well. Please see the README.1st file for more detailed instructions.

What's new in 2.3.3

An orgy of code contributors
Fabian Nuñez contributed solution and project files for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 (look in the vstudio/ directory).
Mikkel Holm Olsen contributed a fix for compiling under MinGW.
Both Fabian and Mikkel submitted additional changes for compilation in a Microsoft Windows environment.

What's new in 2.3.2

The Return of Super-André^TM
Recursive macro function evaluation, up to 10 levels, allowing things like #define X(y,z) ((y)*(z)) to take macros for arguments.
Character set translation for quoted strings on output (useful, for example, for automated translation to PETSCII). Quoting bugs also fixed.
cpp(1) line markers are understood to facilitate using it as a preprocessor, say, in a Makefile.
! would sometimes compute an incorrect instruction length; fixed.
// comments now work.
-M now fully works as documented, for the MASM freaks.
Open #if*s now warn at the end of included files, and err at the end of assembly, rather than allowing sloppy preprocessor work as a "feature."
Updated documentation.
Some more legibility cleanup and hopefully no new compiler warnings.
Other minor things and paranoia checks.

Documentation

Documentation is now in man format since 2.3.0. You can read them here, converted with man2html:

For those using older distributions, refer to the previous xa HTML documentation.

History

I'll just let Andre tell it:

"I developed the first version of xa in 1990 on my old Atari ST to build programms for my selfbuilt computer CS/A65. After my Atari broke I ported it to Linux (ported? It compiled right out of the box!) and when I had to develop a programm for a friend of mine, I compiled it on an Amiga without errors. Until the beginning of 1992 I made more improvements, until it came to version 2.0.7. Since then I only very occasionally worked on it, up to version 2.0.7d. When I decided to push my selfbuilt OS to a new level in 1996, I needed more important improvements, like o65 object format and a linker and all that."

`dxa`

Starting with 2.3.0, xa is now officially accompanied by dxa, its companion disassembler. dxa is a rudely hacked version of Marko Mäkelä's d65 package, with some extra features and altered output to allow "perfect" disassembly (which is to say, you can take an arbitrary object, run it through dxa, take what it spits out, run it back through xa, and get the binary you started with). It also has features for intelligently labeling code and data sections and multiple output formats, and can understand undocumented and CMOS opcodes (65816 not yet).

Because dxa is new and not well tested, I have not included it as part of the standard xa distribution and it is offered here separately. Please consider it to be alpha software only and expect bugs. Refer to the readme for instructions on installation. dxa, like d65, is distributed under GPL v2.

Version 0.1.3 (2 June 2007)

This version repairs issues with dumping values referencing zero page that should be rendered in absolute addressing mode, and issues with relative addressing, both incorporating fixes submitted by Mikkel Holm Olsen. dxa is based on d65 0.2.1.