Merlin Assembler is one of my fondest birthday gifts

30+ years later one of my favorite gifts I received was a software product called Merlin Pro and later bought Merlin 8/16. Up until that point, I had been typing in 6502 and later 65816 assembly op codes (A9, A4, etc) directly into the monitor (call -151 anyone?). It was brutal but the only way to write software (or learn) where the graphics and speed would be fast (basic was just not cutting it). One day, my uncle was visiting from out of town and he along with my mother took me to the one computer store in town so I could pick out something for my recent birthday. There I saw it, in all it’s glory - Merlin 8/16.

Back then, I spent all my time learning to code with the hopes of making a game. Imagine not being able to edit mistakes (or if you did, having to use equivalent of a memory copy to move code you’ve written around in memory to fix typos or to insert instructions that you forgot to … ok, just stop it, don’t think about it - I can attest that it was just awful).

Getting my first assembler was like being reborn, getting super powers and it was glorious. Coding became 1000x more enjoyable and productive and like many programmers, these editors, assemblers become an extension of your mind. Your thoughts flow through you, through your hands into the keyboard and onto the screen… and it’s just incredible.

Years passed and eventually my Apple IIGS game, Hoverblade was written using Merlin — I love that assembler.

P.S. Little did I know back then and only until writing this post, the Merlin author Glenn Bredon was born in my childhood town of Fresno/Clovis and passed about 20 years ago. His wife Anne Bredon sadly passed just a few months ago who was still residing in Clovis. Oh what I would have given to have met him and let him know how much of an impact his work had on my life. Thank you Glenn.