Portability Considerations re: Syntax

Going from Turbo Macro Pro to TMPx

There should be no issues with porting source that assembled using Turbo Macro Pro on the c64 platform to a platform on which TMPx is available. The key issue is the difference between PETSCII and ASCII and the inability to represent many PETSCII characters in a plain ASCII document. TMPview is a separate tool that assists in porting source by converting binary source files saved from Turbo Macro Pro (or practically any Turbo Assembler variant) to an ASCII representation that can be assembled by TMPx. See docs for TMPview here.

Going from TMPx to Turbo Macro Pro

With some planning, you can code for TMPx but still provide for the ability to port the code back to the c64 for use in Turbo Macro Pro. Some things to be aware of:

1. Label names in Turbo Macro Pro are limited to 15 characters. Labels must start with a letter and can contain letters, numbers and the 'fake' CBM underscore character. Labels use only lower case letters. TMPx relaxes these limits.
2. Source code lines in Turbo Macro Pro are limited to 40 characters. TMPx relaxes this limit.
3. PETSCII characters in TMPx are represented using tok64/bastext token notation. Turbo Macro Pro does not recognize this notation.
4. The pseudo-ops .repeat, .screen, .ifdef, .ifndef, .binary, and .bounce are not supported in Turbo Macro Pro v1.x series; .repeat, .screen, .ifdef, .ifndef, and .binary are supported in Turbo Macro Pro v2.x
5. A label on the same line as a .block is ignored in Turbo Macro Pro. TMPx eliminates this restriction.