post/2021-02-06-symtool-a-tool-for-interacting/

[utterances-bot]

symtool: a tool for interacting with your SYM-1 · The Odd Bit

The SYM-1 is a 6502-based single-board computer produced by Synertek Systems Corp in the mid 1970’s. I’ve had one floating around in a box for many, many years, and after a recent foray into the world of 6502 assembly language programming I decided to pull it out, dust it off, and see if it still works. The board I have has a whopping 8KB of memory, and in addition to the standard SUPERMON monitor it has the expansion ROMs for the Synertek BASIC interpreter (yet another Microsoft BASIC) and RAE (the “Resident Assembler Editor”).

https://blog.oddbit.com/post/2021-02-06-symtool-a-tool-for-interacting/

[ANWEV]

Hey, the SYM-1 was my first 'computer' ever. Very recently, I found it back .... and I wanted to get it going again. Then, I found your blog, and read about SYMTOOL. I tried to install it on my Raspberry Pi, but I get below errormessage, after entering the command "sudo pip3 install symtool": Looking in indexes: https://pypi.org/simple, https://www.piwheels.org/simple Collecting symtool Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement symtool (from versions: ) No matching distribution found for symtool.

Anything I'm doing wrong?

Regards, Arnold.

[larsks]

Hi, thanks for the note! I've been working with Python 3.9.x on my Linux desktop, where it seems to install fine, but let me try getting it installed on a Pi and see what happens.

[larsks]

There were two issues:

• There was some Python 3.9 specific code, but it was minimal, and
• There was an explicit dependency on Python 3.9

I've just corrected both issues. You should be able to pip3 install symtool. I've verified that the code passes the unit tests on python 3.7, but I haven't actually tried hooking my sym-1 up to my Pi yet, so let me know if you run into any problems.

(if you still get the same error installing, try requesting an explicit version by running pip3 install 'symtool>=0.0.6')

[ANWEV]

"pip3 install symtool" works now :-), on my Raspberry PI 3B. Now ... I only need to find some more time to play around with the tool. Thx !!!!!!

[SYM-1]

I just came across your article from a google search. Thanks for that. I once automated a cheese factory with a SYM-1, building all the interface hardware myself. So I am quite fond of the SYM-1 and keen to resurrect my old SYM-1. I have a few projects on at the moment but keen to do some 6502 programming again.

[hanthecat]

Oh, this is fantastic! I just picked up a SYM-1 and am looking forward to getting this going. I love the idea of using modern tools as lifestyle improvements for working on vintage hardware.