GPUTILS and Alternate PIC Mnemonics
Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 2:16 am
GPUTILS is a GPL-licensed set of tools for the various PIC microcontrollers. It consists of an assembler (GPASM), a disassembler (GPDASM), a linker (GPLINK), and object file viewer (GPVC). There are versions that run on Microsoft Windows, Unix, and MAC OS X.
Despite having written assembly language programs on and off for more than 4 decades, I like to keep things very simple. I try to avoid the need to link programs. Consequently, while I have used GPASM (the assembler) a fair bit, I have never used any of the other GPUTILS programs.
The GPASM assembler provides a simple preprocessor front end. It also has a pretty good macro capability. I find both of these capabilities very useful as I write assembly language programs for the PIC processors.
I was programming computers in assembly language for a living about 5 years before the C language was first created. I have never warmed up to the syntax of the C language. On the other hand, I am not fond of the mnemonics assigned to the PIC operations by Microchip. So I have experimented with alternate instruction set mnemonics, primarily for the PIC182550 which I use frequently in my projects. Using the features of GPASM, I manage to coax it into assembling my programs even though they look much different than the usual mnemonics.
I will be posting descriptions of my instruction sets here before long.
Despite having written assembly language programs on and off for more than 4 decades, I like to keep things very simple. I try to avoid the need to link programs. Consequently, while I have used GPASM (the assembler) a fair bit, I have never used any of the other GPUTILS programs.
The GPASM assembler provides a simple preprocessor front end. It also has a pretty good macro capability. I find both of these capabilities very useful as I write assembly language programs for the PIC processors.
I was programming computers in assembly language for a living about 5 years before the C language was first created. I have never warmed up to the syntax of the C language. On the other hand, I am not fond of the mnemonics assigned to the PIC operations by Microchip. So I have experimented with alternate instruction set mnemonics, primarily for the PIC182550 which I use frequently in my projects. Using the features of GPASM, I manage to coax it into assembling my programs even though they look much different than the usual mnemonics.
I will be posting descriptions of my instruction sets here before long.