MLX (software)

MLX is a series of machine language entry utilities published by the magazines "COMPUTE!" and "COMPUTE!'s Gazette", as well as books from COMPUTE! Publications. These programs were designed to allow relatively easy entry of the type-in machine language listings that were often included in these publications. Versions were available for the Commodore 64, VIC-20, Atari 8-bit family, and Apple II. MLX listings were reserved for relatively long machine language programs such as SpeedScript.
First version.
MLX was introduced in the December 1983 issue of "COMPUTE!" for the Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit family. This was followed in the January 1984 issue of "COMPUTE!'s Gazette" by a version for the VIC-20 with 8K expansion, and in the March 1984 issue by Tiny MLX, a version for the unexpanded VIC-20. These use a format consisting of six data bytes in decimal format, and a seventh as a checksum. The program auto-increments the address and prints the comma delimiters every three characters. Invalid keystrokes are ignored.
In the Commodore version, beginning in the May 1984 issue of "COMPUTE!", several keyboard keys are redefined to create a makeshift numeric keypad.
Improved version.
A new version of MLX was introduced for the Apple II in the June 1985 issue. This version uses an 8-byte-per-line hexadecimal format. A more sophisticated algorithm was implemented to catch errors overlooked by the original.
The improved features were then backported to the Commodore 64. The new version, known on the title screen as "MLX II", but otherwise simply as "the new MLX", appeared in the December 1985 issue of "COMPUTE!". It was printed in "COMPUTE!'s Gazette" the following month. This version of MLX was used until "COMPUTE!'s Gazette" switched to a disk-only format in December 1993.