From: Ullrich von Bassewitz (uz_at_musoftware.de)
Date: 2003-12-13 14:59:56
As the subject says, I'm planning the next major cc65 release. The current
version 2.9 (with all of it's maintenance releases) is about one year old, and
a lot of things have changed, new stuff has been contributed. For example, I
couldn't believe myself that the last major version (2.9) didn't have loadable
joystick drivers ...
While I cannot predict the exact release schedule now (it depends on my spare
time), my plan is to have it this year, hopefully before christmas. There's
one thing left on my TODO list (debug info output for the linker) but this
change is not important enough to justify a delay, so if in doubt, I will just
drop it.
All this means that it is now the time to test the current code to catch as
many problems as possible before it is actually released. If you have any
applications developed with 2.9, I would urge you to give the current snapshot
a try. The assembler has seen structural changes, so this is also true for
code written in assembler. If the new version is out, and it won't compile
your code, it is bad for both of us and too late to complain. So please go
ahead, download the snapshot and make sure, the results are as you expect.
If there is anything missing from this release that you expected to go in, it
is also time to complain. I'm not perfect, and I may have forgotten one thing
or the other.
In anticipation of the release, I've collected a list of changes to the last
release (2.9.3). I will append the list below for your information. If
anything is missing from this list, or if I forgot to give credit anywhere,
please drop me a note.
Thank you for your support!
Regards
Uz
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Assembler:
- New .FORCEIMPORT command.
- New address size override symbols (z:, ...)
- New macro package "cpu".
- New assignment operator :=
- INCOMPATIBLE CHANGE of the .CPU pseudo variable
- New pseudo functions .SIZEOF, .HIBYTE, .HIWORD, .LOBYTE, .LOWORD,
.BANKBYTE
- Structures, unions and enums: .STRUCT, .UNION and .ENUM
- New, improved scoping rules.
- First support for far and near segments/procedures.
* Compiler:
- Flexible array struct members.
- Provisions for handling arguments to main()
- Rewrite of the type conversion.
* Linker
- New directory search options.
- Generation of debug info is now "official" (but the format of the file
may still change).
* cl65 utility:
- Small additions to track changes in the tools called.
* ca65html
- New --linenumbers and --linelabels options
- Ability to convert tabs to spaces in the output
- Colorization
- Can generate links to the C source files (must be generated by c2html)
* Library
- New directory functions for the CBMs contributed by Josef Soucek.
- Joystick drivers are now loadable modules. The old statically linked
code has been converted to loadable drivers and is no longer available.
- Library support for the NES by groepaz <groepaz_at_gmx.net>
- system() function.
- isblank() is "official" in C99.
- Arguments passed to main for several platforms (includes GEOS!)
- The open function for the CBMs will no longer add a file type, so
files of any type can be opened without changing _filetype.
- Joystick driver for the Apple 2 contributed by Stefan Haubenthal.
- Two joystick drivers for the C64 contributed by groepaz, one of them
converted to c128 by me.
- Minimal Supervision support (linker config and startup file) contributed
by Peter Trauner.
- Several graphics drivers for the C128 and GEOS written and contributed
by Maciej Witkowiak.
- New ramcart extended memory driver for the C128 written by Maciej
Witkowiak.
- Two new Apple ][ TGI drivers contributed by Stefan Haubenthal.
- New serial (RS232) driver architecture. RS232 drivers are now loadable.
Drivers are available for C64/SwiftLink and C128/SwiftLink. The old
static drivers are still available but deprecated. They will get removed
in one of the next releases.
- More small changes/additions.
* Documentation
- Platform specific docs for the C64 and Atari.
- Much extended function reference.
- Documentation for ca65html (an assembler source to HTML converter)
added.
- Lots of other additions.
* Other
- New co65 utility that allows to convert an o65 file into an assembler
module, so it can be linked statically.
- Changed object file format.
- Disassembler ready, documentation added.
--
Ullrich von Bassewitz uz_at_musoftware.de
----------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from the list send mail to majordomo_at_musoftware.de with
the string "unsubscribe cc65" in the body(!) of the mail.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : 2003-12-13 15:01:25 CET