Here is a complete description of ORCA/M in the form of an online ad from the era of the Apple IIGS.

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ORCA/M Assembler

GS-04 ORCA/M 2.1.0 $75

 

Catalog Number: GS-04

Latest Version: 2.1.0

Price: $75

Includes: 524 page spiral bound manual, index, table of contents;

4 800K ProDOS disks.

System Requirements:

System 5.0.4 or better

1.25M RAM (2M recommended)

3.5 Floppy Disk Drive (hard drive required for full use)

Ever since ORCA/M was first released under DOS 3.3 in 1983, it has been hailed as the most powerful assembler available for the Apple line of computers. That's why Apple picked ORCA/M as the standard assembler for the Apple IIGS, shipping it under their name of Apple Programmer's Workshop (APW). Almost all Apple IIGS books and magazine articles, including Apple's, use ORCA/M for assembly language source code.

ORCA/M is a complete development environment for assembly language programming on the Apple IIGS. It includes an assembler with the most powerful macro language ever implemented on an Apple II computer, a link editor, a scriptable command processor, several utilities, and a full screen text editor. You also get Apple's GSBug debugger, Rez compiler, and many programmer utilities - a $30 value - absolutely free!

The development environment included with ORCA/M is fully compatible with the Apple Programmer's Workshop (APW). You get a professional quality UNIX-like text-based development environment that works with any compiler or utility that is compatible with APW or ORCA. If you prefer a desktop development environment with menus and windows, you can use the ORCA/M assembler and utilities from the desktop environment that comes with ORCA/C, ORCA/Pascal and ORCA/Modula-2.

ORCA/M for the Apple IIGS comes with a complete reference manual that includes tutorial chapters that make learning the development environment fast and easy. The reference section which follows gives you details about the system, including the powerful set of macros that come with ORCA/M. This reference section is organized for easy access, so you can find the information you need quickly.

Here are just some of the major features you'll find in ORCA/M:

The Assembler

• Supports the 6502, 65C02 and 65816.
• Assembles up to 5000 lines per minute on an unaccelerated Apple IIGS.
• Supports partial assembly for even faster turnaround of corrections.
• Full macro capabilities, including:
  • Macro libraries.
  • Global communication between macros.
  • Pass strings to macros.
  • Macros can call other macros.

The Macro Libraries

ORCA/M comes with an extensive macro and subroutine library to get you going quickly. It includes:

• Formatted input and output of numbers and strings.
• 2, 4 and 8 byte integer math, including add, subtract, multiply, divide, square root, comparisons and random numbers.
• Complete ProDOS, GS/OS and toolbox macros, including Apple's original macros and our custom macros with high-level language style parameters.
• Many more utility macros.

The Development Environment

• Full screen text editor that edits up to 10 files, with file lengths limited only by available memory.
• Powerful command driven shell works like UNIX, but uses familiar Applesoft command names.
• Supports I/O redirection and pipes.
• A fully scriptable shell lets you write shell programs for repetitive tasks.
• Online help lists commands and tells you how to use each one.
• Expandable - add our Utility Pack #1 or write your own shell utilities.
• Comes with Apple's GSBug, the machine language debugger of choice.
• Includes Apple's Rez resource compiler for developing desktop programs.