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It looks like he used an Apple II as the development environment, which is straight forward since both machines use the same CPU. The .S files are assembled to 6502 object files. The "makefile" loads each object file to a specific area in RAM, then Download.o transfers the contents of RAM to a waiting Atari 800 via serial connection.

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At Broderbund we used Apple II's to develop for both the Atari 800 and the C64. I worked on a cable and software for both ends so we wouldn't have to change systems. It is MUCH faster to develop on one machine, and test on another.

And a development session would have looked somewhat like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDPlfqpgW8c

(I may miss the Merlin assembler, but I don't miss disk ][ drives at all.)

Wow, that brings back so many memories: thank you for posting this.

I loved Merlin.

wow - neat. i'm glad people capture this stuff for posterity. i remember doing stuff like that back then.

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