Asm198x
Frame one assembled Spectrum program
A single CODE block, with only the reference-compatible loader stub when the assembler owns that framing.
// 198x FAMILY · BUILD198X
Build198x
Build tools & media mastering for vintage releases
Build198x is the family's build pipeline after the assembler has done its job. It converts art and audio into native formats, packs data, and masters the tape and disk images that a real machine or emulator can boot.
The simple split
Asm198x emits programs. Build198x composes releases. If the output is one assembled program in a reference assembler's normal container, that is assembler framing. Once a second artefact joins it - a loading screen, an authored BASIC loader, another CODE block, a disk directory - it becomes mastering.
Build198x
Master a release tape
A BASIC loader, loading screen, one or more CODE blocks, and the ordering needed to make a distributable tape image.
Build198x
Build a disk image
Compiled program, converted assets, directory layout, boot files, and the final machine-readable disk image.
Why Code198x needs it
Lessons should end in artefacts that feel like the period: a Spectrum tape with a loader and screen, a C64 program with converted assets, an Amiga disk image that boots. Build198x keeps that work out of lesson prose and out of the assembler, so the course can teach the machine while the build tool does the packaging.
Where it sits
Code198x provides the curriculum and source projects. Asm198x assembles code. Emu198x runs and captures it. Build198x turns the built pieces into the media image you would actually load.