Z88 Assembler Workbench 2017.4 Release Notes
- Gunther Strube
29th April 2017
Since the /wiki/spaces/MPM/pages/33521704 release of Mpm, an intermediate release was done of Mpm and all related tools as part of the direct release to Sourceforge in May 2016 (2016.5). Today, after considerable effort, it has been possible to create a brand-new installation of latest tools to be able to build OZ ROM V4.7 and OZ V5.0 in-progress development.
This release contains rock-stable editions of Mpm, Z88Card, MthToken (new) and DZasm. Documentation, however is still in-progress work and will be completed in a future release of the Z88 Assembler Workbench.
The major efforts in this release are:
- Mpm V1.5
- Much improved internal refactoring and compilation speed
- Macros
- Z88Card V2.0
- Re-written from scratch in Ansi-C for easy portability across OS platforms and less runtime installation dependency (V1 were implemented in Qt4)
- Expression evaluation for addresses
- INCLUDE file support
- Load files into Z88 card file area (complete card or as file area below ROM / Application area)
- MthToken V0.7
- New tool that assists in transparently compressing text strings in typical areas such as MTH for static Z88 Applications. This tool has reduced text string constant in OZ ROM to approx 40%.
- DZasm
- Bundled utility for intelligent reverse-engineering of binary Z80 code. Very handy for developers who wish to improve applications for Z88, previously only available as binary code.
- Introducing Arm7hf platform support
- We are now supporting the Z88 Assembler Workbench tools to Linux Arm platform, such as Raspberry Pi 2+, Chromebooks using Arch Linux Arm or Crouton, Ubuntu, and many others that utilize Arm7hf Elf binaries. These are just examples. There are many other Arm-based tinker boards that supports ARM7 and later.
All source code that the Z88 development team produces, is primarily developed on the Unix platform (Linux and MacOS). All build scripts use Bash. All build scripts also utilizes Git for revision management, which must have been installed on your desktop operating system. You can download the git command line client from https://git-scm.com/ for your platform or as part of your favorite OS software channels (Linux distribtutions supply git directly via their software repositories).
Important: Final supported release of Git for Windows XP is V2.10.0. Get it here: https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/releases/download/v2.10.0.windows.1/Git-2.10.0-32-bit.exe
When using Z80 assembler source code build scripts on Microsoft Windows, MSDOS prompt is no longer supported, but the built-in Bash Shell as it is provided by https://git-scm.com/.
Screenshot of compiled OZ ROM sources using Bash Shell command line on Windows XP:
Screenshot of compiled OZ ROM sources using Bash Shell command line on Windows 7:
Download the Z88 Assembler Workbench Tools according to your platform:
Platform | Version | Size | Added | Installation notes | Download Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Z88AsmWorkbench-2017.4-windowsxp-installer.exe | 6.9MB | 2017/04/26 | For 32bit Windows XP (Intel x86). Download EXE installer to desktop, double-click to start installation. Supported to run on Windows XP SP2+. The executable binaries run on 32bit version of Windows XP. Execute installer as appropriate from disc download location, as current user or administrator to "Program Files" area. Menu item is created for un-installer. The installer ensures that the PATH environment variable for all tools are updated, for the next time you create a new command line shell. |  |
| Z88AsmWorkbench-2017.4-windows7-installer.exe | 6.8MB | 2017/04/28 | For 64bit Windows 7 and later (Intel x86_64). Download EXE installer to desktop, double-click to start installation. Supported to run on Windows 64bit 7, 8, 8.1, 10, etc. Execute installer as appropriate from disc download location, as current user or administrator to "Program Files" area. Menu item is created for un-installer. The installer ensures that the PATH environment variable for all assembler tools are updated, for the next time you create a new command line shell. | |
 | Z88AsmWorkbench-2017.4-linux-installer.run | 4.7MB | 2017/04/26 | For 32bit Linux (kernel 2.6 or later). Download RUN installer to Gnome / KDE (or other X-Windows based) desktop, apply chmod +x, then execute from command line or desktop file browser. Supported to install and run on DEB package distributions like Debian & Ubuntu, RPM package distributions like Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSuse and PcLinuxOS. The 32bit installer executable and assembler tools are distribution independent. The installer ensures that the PATH environment variable for all assembler tools is set up for the next time you create a new shell. | |
| Z88AsmWorkbench-2017.4-linux-x64-installer.run | 6.0MB | 2017/04/28 | For 64bit Linux (kernel 2.6 or later) Download RUN installer to Gnome / KDE (or other X-Windows based) desktop, apply chmod +x, then execute from command line or desktop file browser. Supported to install and run on DEB package distributions like Debian & Ubuntu, RPM package distributions like Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSuse and PcLinuxOS. The 32bit installer executable and assembler tools are distribution independent. The installer ensures that the PATH environment variable for all assembler tools is set up for the next time you create a new shell. | |
| Z88AsmWorkbench-2017.4-linux-arm7hf.tar.bz2 | 142.2kB | 2017/04/23 | For 32/64bit Linux Arm7 Download bzip2 archive, then de-compress. From command line or desktop file browser, execute install.sh script. It will install the tools in $HOME/bin. Supported to run on any Arm7-based computer such as Chromebooks (for Arm), Raspberry Pi 2+3 and many others. The 32bit Arm executable tools are distribution independent. The installer ensures that the PATH environment variable for all assembler tools is set up for current and future shells. | |
 | Z88AsmWorkbench-2017.4-osx-installer.app.zip | 5.8MB | 2017/04/26 | For 64bit Intel MacOS. Extract installer application from Zip file. Execute the installer application and decide where you want to install the assembler tools to be executed. The installer ensures that the PATH environment variable for the tools is set up for the next time you create a new shell. We recommend using iTerm2 bash shell for macOS. | |
Z88 Assembler Workbench Resources
| Mpm source code | https://gitlab.com/bits4fun/mpm |
| DZasm source code | https://gitlab.com/bits4fun/dzasm |
| Z88Card source code | https://gitlab.com/z88/z88card |
| MthToken source code | https://gitlab.com/z88/mthtoken |
| Project wiki | https://cambridgez88.jira.com/wiki/display/MPM |
| Cambridge Z88 Project Wiki | https://cambridgez88.jira.com/wiki/ |