with 2nd gen languages its "assemblers" not "compilers".
ummm...no....they aren't.....the issue you have with TASM is you copy down the batch files people give you like there's no tomorrow and don't bother trying to understand what it MEANS. TASM doesn't care where you files are, you just have to tell it where to look. Look at the Phoenix build directory to see what I mean.
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because assembly in general predates Fortran. in case you haven't noticed Fortran is a 3rd generation language......assembly is a 2nd generation language. each command is just a pneumonic for an opcode. there is no "language specification" like there is for 3rd, 4th. and 5th generation languages, so if you don't mind writing code nobody else can use and writing your own assembler then feel free and come up with your own command names (hell, you can even just define macros for all the commands you dont like at the start of your program and call them whatever you want). on a side not push and pop define exactly what they do. Stack operations have those names in EVERY language or stack implementation I've ever seen. End of story.
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the point of tutorials is generally to read them in order. the rest of the code in there is whats known as "snippets", you can use it in any program you want. Furthermore CoBB's Independent z80 guide is an excellent reference (you will need to learn 83+ specific stuff on your own if you use it). The jokes in there are generally to releave the monotony of reading through 30 straight pages of assembly code. If they confuse you, dont read them.
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ummm, wtf? Those charts explain exactly what you need to know, and exactly how to read them. the charts of which registers can be used as operands for ld tell exactly which registers can and can't be used. nothing complicated. how memory works? If you can't understand the concept of a bunch of bytes arranged linearly and addressed by the order in which they appear, you should probably consider learning something other than assembly.
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ummm....the size restriction is imposed by the calculator itself, not your code. people have been trying to figure out how to disable that particular port for ages. You honestly don't need THAT much executable code either, for 20K programs like Desolate its almost entirely data which doesn't get run so it isn't a problem.