Tools

Assemblers, compilers, and PRG-oriented tools

Assemblers

• NESHLA by Brian Provinciano. A 6502 assembler specifically geared towards NES development.
• CC65 - A portable 6502/65c02/65c816 assembler, linker, and C compiler.
• x816 v1.12f by minus. An assembler for 6502/65c02/65c816.
• Nintendo Assembler (MagicKit) by Charles Doty, David Michel, and J.H. Van Ornum.
• Unofficial MagicKit by zzo38 (based on MagicKit but with many improvements; includes PPMCK as well)
• ACME - Marco Baye's ACME 6502/65c02/65c816 cross-assembler. Runs on several platforms, including Amiga, DOS, and Linux. Supports macros, local labels, and many other features.
• xa65 - Andre Fachat's open-source cross-assembler; written in C and supports the standard 6502 and 65c816 opcode lists. Sports a C-like preprocessor and supports label-hiding in a block structure. Produces plain binary files, as well as special o65 object files. Further tools include a linker, file and relocation utilities for o65 files.
• nescom - Joel Yliluoma's 6502 assembler; written in C++, based on xa65 and largely compatible with it, including with the o65 object file format.
• FASM v1.0 by Toshi Morita. FASM was written as a quick replacement for the 2500 AD assembler for Nintendo 8-bit development. Licensed under the GPL.
• P65 Assembler - A portable 6502 assembler written in Perl.
• WLA DX - A portable GB-Z80/Z80/6502/6510/65816 macro assembler. Linux and MS-DOS versions are also available.
• Telemark Cross Assembler - A shareware assembler for numerous 8-bit processors, including the 6502, Z80, and 8051.
• The XORcyst - "... a rather platform-independent set of tools and languages for 6502 software development" written by Kent Hanson, aka Snowbro.
• ASM6 - written by Loopy because most other assemblers "were either too finicky, had weird syntax, took too much work to set up, or too bug-ridden to be useful".
• AS65 (Freeware?) By Andrew John Jacobs, Interesting Macro Assembler for 8 and 16-bit 65xx systems, DOS/WIN32, Java Port Availible

NOTE: DOS/Win32 version is old, use JAVA version instead. (Great for SNES/NES Development as well as other 65xx Systems!)

• XTOOLS (Shareware) A promising Table-based ASM kit with everything but the kitchen sink (Assembler, Disassembler, and more.) And it costs $49, If Registered, Includes a Table-based ASM Source Translator.

NOTE: The files are generated as MOTOROLA formatted HEX files, That means you need a converter, go to the Converters section for the Binary Converter Page

NES IDEs

• WUSDN A New NES IDE as of 2012 by the WUSDN team, Originally for Atari 8-Bit computers, Now also comes with NES capability, Requires Jave Runtime Environment and Eclipse to run!

• NESICIDE (WIP) source code only, Github link for the NESICIDE IDE by cpow (Chris Pow)

Compilers

• CC65 - A portable 6502/65c02/65c816 assembler, linker, and C compiler.

Converters

• Converters for INTEL/MOTOROLA HEX formats to Binary (BIN) and back, for assemblers like XTOOLS.

Emulator-oriented tools

• NEStress ROM for testing emulators (includes source code)

Tile (CHR) editors

• 8ted by Damian Yerrick
• Famitile - Includes command-line and graphical mode.

Map (nametable) editors

• 8name by Damian Yerrick
• Famitile - Includes command-line and graphical mode; support standard nametables and MMC5 extension nametables.

Music tools

Trackers/sequencers

• Nerd Tracker II tracker-style music editor
• MCK driver and MML translator for music creation (includes source code)
• PPMCK unofficial version by zzo38 (includes MagicKit as well)
• FamiTracker tracker-style music editor
• Musetracker tracker-style music editor (formerly known as PornoTracker).

DMC conversion tools

• FamiTracker can import .wav files and convert to DMC samples, which can then be exported as .dmc files.
• NSF Live! NSF player that can export DMC samples from NSF songs as .dmc files.

Miscellaneous other tools

• More development tools