Kenbak Assembler Project

[Grant Stockly]

Since I have the Kenbak kit I decided it would help people if there was an assembler for it. It gets pretty annoying writing code by hand... I spent a while researching and found it would be a pretty big deal to write one from scratch. I found "AS" and have written a target code file for the KENBAK. It is still in beta, however so far it works perfectly. The only thing left to do is WARN people when they do something stupid. A good thing about "AS" is that it supports the 8080, 6800, and now the TTL Kenbak. So I think I will make "AS" the official complier for the kits.

I designed the mnemonic set for maximum flexibility and readability. As you can see my include file has the parameters in long hand. ; ) Its a goal of mine to get these into schools. I think this assembly language would be pretty easy for someone who has studied basic or C.

What do you think? Here is sample output from the assembler building a program from the Kenbak Laboratory Exercises manual. Its the first one in the book. (I threw in NOOP and HALT at the end for fun) I converted the octal listing into opcodes, and then reassembled it. I get the same results. ; ) I've e-mailed the author about including the Kenbak code generator in the distribution and asked if he could add a command line option for using octal in the program listing instead of HEX. ; ) If he won't, I WILL!

Let me know what you guys think... Anyone here have a Kenbak? If not, and you want one...I've got a few spots left. : ) http://www.kenbakkit.com

Before I include the program listing, here are all of the possible instructions. This 132 IC TTL computer is purely amazing...

[ADD/SUB/LOAD/STORE] [Addressing Mode], [Register],  [Address]
[OR/AND/LNEG] [Addressing Mode], [Register]
[JPD/JPI/JMD/JMI]  [Register], [Condition], [Address]
SET [0/1], [Position], [Address]
SKIP  [0/1], [Position], [Address]
BSHIFT [Direction], [Places],  [Register]
ROTATE [Direction], [Places], [Register]
NOOP (no  parameters)
HALT (no parameters)

macro assembler 1.42 Beta [Bld 55]
(i386-unknown-win32)
(C) 1992,2007  Alfred Arnold
68RS08-Generator (C) 2006 Andreas Bolsch
Mitsubishi  M16C-Generator also (C) 1999 RMS
XILINX KCPSM(Picoblaze)-Generator (C) 2003  Andreas Wassatsch
TMS320C2x-Generator (C) 1994/96 Thomas  Sailer
TMS320C5x-Generator (C) 1995/96 Thomas Sailer
KENBAK-1 TTL Computer  Assembler (C) 2007 Grant Stockly
WARNING: KENBAK code generator still in  beta

AS V1.42 Beta [Bld 55] - source file ./a/ken.asm - page 1 -  8/29/2007 0:00:48
assembling ./a/ken.asm
PASS 1
  1/    0 :            page  0
  2/    0 :           cpu   KENBAK
  3/    0 :           include  kenbak.inc
 22/    0 :           listing on
 23/    0 :            
   4/    0 :         
  5/    4 :            ORG 004o      ;First non-special  address
  6/    4 :         
  7/    4 :         Loop:
  8/    4 : 03  01      ADD     Constant, RegisterA, 1
  9/    6 : 1C 80      STORE   Memory,  RegisterA, Lamps
 10/    8 : E4 04      JPD     Unconditional, Zero,  Loop
 11/    A :         
 12/    A : 00         HALT
 13/    B :  80         NOOP
 AS V1.42 Beta [Bld 55] - source file ./a/ken.asm - page 2 -  8/29/2007 0:00:48

  symbol table (* = unused):
   ------------------------
*ARCHITECTURE :  i386-unknown-win32 - | *BIGENDIAN  :                      0 - |
*BRANCHEXT :                      0 - |  *CASESENSITIVE :                  0 - |
 CONSTANT :                       3 -  | *CONSTPI :        3.141592653589793 - |
*DATE :                   8/29/2007  - | *FALSE :                          0 - |
*FULLPMMU :                        1 - | *HAS64 :                          1 - |
*HASDSP  :                         0 - | *HASFPU :                         0 -  |
*HASPMMU :                        0 - | *INDEXED :                        6  - |
*INDIND :                         7 - | *INDIRECT :                        5 - |
*INEXTMODE :                      0 - | *INLWORDMODE  :                    0 - |
*INMAXMODE :                      0 - | *INSRCMODE  :                      0 - |
*INSUPMODE :                      0 - |  LAMPS  :                         80 - |
*LISTON :                         1 - |   LOOP :                           4 C |
*MACEXP :                         1 -  |  MEMORY :                         4 - |
*MOMCPU :                       EBA  - | *MOMCPUNAME :                KENBAK - |
*NEGATIVE :                        5 - | *NESTMAX :                      100 - |
*NON_ZERO  :                       3 - | *PACKING :                        0 -  |
*PADDING :                        1 - | *POSITIVE :                       6  - |
*POSITIVE_NON_ZERO :              7 - |  REGISTERA :                       0 - |
*REGISTERB :                      1 - | *REGISTERX  :                      2 - |
*RELAXED :                        0 - | *TIME  :                     0:00:48 - |
*TRUE :                           1 - |   UNCONDITIONAL :                  3 - |
*VERSION :                     142F -  |  ZERO :                           4 - |
     44 symbols
     37 unused  symbols
 AS V1.42 Beta [Bld 55] - source file ./a/ken.asm - page 3 -  8/29/2007 0:00:48
  codepages:
  ----------
STANDARD (0 changed  characters)
0.01 seconds assembly time
     36 lines source file
       1 pass
      0 errors
      0 warnings