How to set-up a C64 assembly programming environment
Channel: No Name
Date: 2022-05-11

Viewer 101 said it would be good if I did a video on how I set-up my C64 assembly programming development environment, so here it is!

I code on a Mac so you may have to make changes to suit your OS of choice, but the good news is all the tools I use are available on Windows and Linux too so it shouldn't be too hard.

Here's how to do it on a Mac:-

1. Download and install Visual Studio Code https://code.visualstudio.com
2. Download and and install Java https://java.com
3. Download VICE https://vice-emu.sourceforge.io
4. Download the C64 Debugger https://sourceforge.net/projects/c64-debugger/
5. Download and unzip the Kick Assembler files from http://www.theweb.dk/KickAssembler/Main.html#frontpage
6. Copy the KickAss.jar file to /usr/local/bin/
7. Open a terminal and type 'java -version' to check you have Java installed correctly
8. In the terminal type 'java -jar /usr/local/bin/KickAss.jar' and you should get some output about Kick Assembler and the author as well as an error saying no input file specified, this is good
9. Open Visual Studio Code, open the extensions manager, search KickAssembler and install the one by Captain JiNX
10. Open the KickAssembler extension settings/config and ensure the paths to java, the KickAss.jar, the C64 debugger and VICE are as per the video (substituting username for your actual username and the full path to the executables) and tick 'Use C64 debugger'

Ok if all the above worked you should be able to write and save a file with the extension .asm in Visual Studio code and KickAssembler extension will colour the instructions and variables accordingly. You should then be able to press F5 (or Fn+F5) and the code should be assembled and executed in the debugger.