I am currently writing a compiler for the PDP-8. The compiler is going to translate source code into PDP-8 assembly code that calls some runtime routines to perform high-level functions such as managing call frames.
I am currently using Douglas Jones' PAL assembler which turns out to be rather annoying for my use case as it
- does not support underscores or dollar signs in identifiers
- does not allow the assembly code to be split into multiple files
As a consequence, the compiler has to do some copy-paste action to combine the runtime code with the compiled program. Linking is also not easily possible.
Is there an assembler for the PDP-8 that provides an object-file based process with a final linking stage so my compiler could emit object files that are linked into a single core image by a linker?