The Lab
Retro Reference

Turbo Macro Pro

The on-hardware 6502 assembler used throughout the blog: editor commands, assembler directives, and the Super Snapshot 5 monitor. Every editor command is the prefix key ← (the back-arrow at the top-left of the keyboard) followed by the key shown.

Editor commands

Press the prefix ← then the key. Special keys: ret RETURN, spc SPACE, ↑ up-arrow, £ pound.

Assembler syntax & directives

Directive / tokenMeaning
Labels need no colon and use letters and numbers; the blog avoids underscores, which were not a vintage convention (use fpone, not fp_one). Strings use lowercase so they map to standard uppercase PETSCII. A separate left-justified, comment-free copy of each listing is kept for pasting into TMP on real hardware.

Super Snapshot 5 monitor

A separate cartridge monitor often used alongside TMP. In its DOS commands, @ and > are interchangeable and replace the BASIC OPEN/CLOSE 15 dance.
Original cheatsheet layout by Gregorio Nacu (c64os.com); this version (1.3) by Michael Doornbos. Get Turbo Macro Pro from Style at turbo.style64.org. Printable PDF: TMP + REU cheat sheet.