Support for Intel style mnemonics for Z80 as per TDL/CDL (Technical Design Labs/Computer Design Labs)

[MrDomingo]

Hi, in my younger days I used TDL Macro Assembler and gettting back to all things Z80 I would like to continue with this style as I have some assembler code using this format. Basically, it is Intel style, extended to cover new Z80 instructions.
What would be required to add support for this?

[vhelin]

Adding support for this would mean programming another instruction parser for Z80. I assume Intel style is not currently supported by WLA DX, don't 100% know what Intel style is. Not sure if .MACROs can be used to add the support, probably not.

Personally I see this as a low priority feature request and a cosmetic one. With the health and work related issues I'm having I'm not going to do it, sorry. :) Maybe someone else here can do it?

If .MACROs could be used to add this style by making improvements to .MACROs, then this is interesting and can be used for other things as well and this is something I could take a look at. Someone just needs to create the specs for this...

I can at least investigate this weekend what Intel style really means in the context of WLA DX.

[MrDomingo]

I did not specifically request that you do this. It was more to do with how to go about it. I am also tied up with various projects but I'm willing to give it a go in hopefully not too distant future. I only discovered this project yesterday and have no knowledge of its details and for that reason I was hoping to be given some directions, specifically special meaning of some terms/chars used in instruction tables, eg 'x', 'm', '*', '?' etc and use of 3rd,4th, 5th field after mnemonic and hex code. I did have a quick look at documentation but I think its more on how to use the cross-assembler. Another suggestion by Kroc was that it may be best to start with 8080 instructions .c file but after seeing the very small size of 8080 table, I would say its a wrong starting point. Also, the intel/zilog memonics do not differ in order of SRC DST as was suggested by Kroc.
I can point you to TDL assembler manual and specifically Appendix A, P38, and I would like to know now if the TDL mnemonics are a deal breaker b/4 I try and committ time on the project:
http://www.s100computers.com/Software%20Folder/Assembler%20Collection/TDL_Relocating-Linking_Assembler_1977.pdf

Sample assembler code for Zapple monitor:
https://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/zap1k.asm
Listing at:
https://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/zap1k.lst

BTW, I like the flexibility the cross-assembler has with child labels. TDL has something similar, 'local' labels that are identified with leading double period ".." . These are accessible and bound by two normal (global) labels.

[Kroc]

Arguably it would be easier to add the extra Z80 instructions to the 8080 parser, or spin off another parser based on the 8080 one. Intel syntax swaps the source/destination compared to Zilog syntax.

[vhelin]

How about adding support for something like preprocessor rules? A file with one rule per line, something like

ADD+,* -> ADD ,

s1 and s2 are strings, + is interpreted as 1+ white space characters and * is 0+ white space characters?

Initially it'd support just those symbols, and it could be used to add support for INTEL style syntax for other platforms as well? Would that be useful, or am I thinking about something that's too generic and not useful?