cc65 VS py65816

True. The code generated by https://cc65.github.io/ is pretty decent but there are a few places where hand-rolled assembler will perform much better when you need it. Although I've made things for 6502-based systems in C with this handy compiler (thanks cc65 contributors!).

Is there something intrinsic to how C handles addressing that makes segmented architectures more painful than they ought to be? Or maybe is there a language where segmented addressing is easier?

I hadn't really thought about it in a while. :)

cc65

There's tools like cc65 that let you write C code for the NES.

You can use any text editor for coding and the tutorial uses cc65 for compiling assembly to machine code.

You can use cc65 https://cc65.github.io/ but because you are compiling it in a limit hardware the cc65 has its rules and recommendations to follow in order to get the most optimal binaries, and more specifically I read this when I made the "Pong" game for NES as a practice long time ago https://nesdoug.com/ , I hope it helps, happy coding!

What assembler/tools did you use anyways? Personally I'd recommend ca65 from the cc65 C compiler utility. It's very powerful, open source, and kept updated (unlike a lot of ancient 6502 tools, like WDC's)

It really is a cool project. https://github.com/cc65/cc65

It provides some template configuration files describing different memory layouts. And provides common libraries for input/output.

There's also a LLVM fork for MOS: https://github.com/llvm-mos/llvm-mos

They've got some interesting hacks with ZeroPage memory and register allocation: https://llvm-mos.org/wiki/Code_generation_overview

Interesting if you geek out on that kind of research.

There are several Forth versions for the 65816 that I've found online. Some are specialized to specific hardware but can be modified. Michael Guidero's OF816 is designed to be easily ported to new systems. I got it running on my 65816 emulator without much problem. It handles banked memory and uses a good subset of 65816 features.

That's how I learned the 65816 and Python at the same time. Here's my 65816 enhancement to py65. I took longer than I thought it would (mostly writing the tests to validate the emulation).

I found some alternative tools, but really wanted to continue using what I was familiar with, so that took some programming work as I couldn't find any options for my current tools. I've already written about my work on a py65 based 65816 emulator. I've refined it a bit and created a version that doesn't require modifications to py65. It's available on my py65816 GitHub. With that down, I only needed a 65816 listing file.