A cross-assembler for the Motorola M6800 microcomputer

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to write a cross-assembler for the Motorola M6800 microcomputer to run on the Data General Nova minicomputer and dual disk hardware. The Nova minicomputer assembly language was selected for the cross-assembler program.Specifications for the cross-assembler were formulated as a hybrid of those of an assembler written by the microcomputer manufacturer, those of the Nova assembler, and some which were dictated by the hardware utilized. A skeletal program was written in which the processing modules were represented as subroutine calls. Subsequently, the processing modules were written and incorporated into the main program. The thesis discusses the M6800 programming language, the cross-assembler specifications, and the resulting implementation.The cross-assembler produced from this research was tested on numerous source programs and performed as specified. Samples of cross-assembler output listings are included in the thesis.Ball State UniversityMuncie, IN 47306