Here is a list of tools I use for writing my demos and games, I hope it will help others:
- Crimson Editor
has built in z80 syntax highlighting and you can define your own 'tools' For example press ALT+1 to compile CPC code.
- pucrunch
Fantastic cruncher, originally written for C64, but there is a uncrunch routine for z80. Not the fastest uncrunch, but very good at reducing data. A 16k screen down to 1k?? Yes of course!
- pasmo
A great cross- z80 assembler. Run it on the PC, generate your code for CPC. I run it as a tool through Crimson.
You can include binary data too!
You can even use it to make 128k games because you can output symbol table and include that into your other sources and make the game in modules.
- cpcxfs
I use this when I make the "master" disc. I use a Windows batch file to assemble and compress the files then put them into a disk image
- snamanager
Ramlaids excellent snapshot managment tool. I use this for fast development, because it is much quicker to make programs like this, debug in emulator, and then finally use another tool to make final disc or cassette.
I generally have a batch file which converts all my image data, then uses the appropiate tool to generate the "master" casstte/disc which is then spread (or sent to Cronosoft).
- 2cdt
My own tool for creating tape (CDT) files. Can handle standard loader and Spectrum style loader (I have the source for the CPC version of a spectrum loader).
- gimp
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A really good image editor, it is free, but the best thing: You can define images with CPC mode 0 sized pixels and edit them this way.
Change the X resolution to be 36 and Y resolution to be 72.
Then right click on image and 'show dot for dot', you get "fat pixels" which are closer to the CPC 0 sized pixels.
- bmp2cpc
My own tool for extracting graphics from bitmap (BMP) images. Can handle multiple frames and a variety of output formats (e.g. uncompressed sprite, rle sprite, h/w sprite, c64 charset, spectrum graphics etc).
- Arnold emulator
My own CPC emulator. It is showing it's age, but suitable for debugging code.
- playtzx
I use this to convert a cdt file into a wav file, then I can play it through the PC soundcard and load the game on a real cpc, good for testing tape games work on a real machine.
- dsktools
I use this to transfer DSK file to real 3.5" discs which I can run on a CPC6128 equipped with side switch and ABBA switch. Great for testing code really works on a real machine.
- Vortextracker
Not used it yet, but plan to use it (or a CPC musician) for making sfx/sound.
- addhead
My own tool for adding an amsdos header to a file.
- datamaker
My own tool for converting binary data into asm source file (defb ...)
which I can include into my code.
- fileattr
My own tool which will read an amsdos header and extract start/end/execution addresses, but output them in this form defw &xxxx,
which I can then include into cassette loaders to make the final master cassette and use fast loaders easily on cassette.
So those are the tools I use, what tools do others use?
