Assembly on the 99/4A

[Tursi]

1 hour ago, PeteE said:

Thanks, Tursi.  I've grown to trust Classic99 based on how much work you've done to make it cycle accurate.

Well, to make the cycle counts accurate, anyway. It doesn't emulate every internal cycle like MAME does... though it's getting closer all the damn time.

 

I think it's fixed, so I'll push the new version shortly.

[Jeff White]

In reviewing how CLR @VDPSTA works on the 9900 versus 9995 and what @PeteE is trying to do, I thought about using ABS @VDPSTA instead which requires reading VDPSTA with both CPU’s.

 

In reviewing ABS, I note that it is the original value (source operand) that sets the status register bits 0-4 and not the result.  Is this how MAME, @mizapf, and Classic99, @Tursi, work?

[Tursi]

hehe, it wouldn't work terribly well if it didn't.  That's as documented.

 

 

[Jeff White]

@Tursi, I think ABS is rarely used.  Do we have a chart of instruction frequency?  ABS is special.  Is there any other assembly instruction that sets status bits on source operand?

[+Lee Stewart]

55 minutes ago, Jeff White said:

@Tursi, I think ABS is rarely used.  Do we have a chart of instruction frequency?  ABS is special.  Is there any other assembly instruction that sets status bits on source operand?

 

All of the immediate instructions except LIMI and LWPI do: AI ANDI ORI LI CI(not sure how you would characterize this one?)

 

...lee

[+9640News]

Got a question.

 

Does the LOAD opcode >05 return anything to the PAB in VRAM beyond the status byte for a Program Image file?  Would the Myarc HFDC return anything more?  Perhaps the program start address and length of file?  This may be something very specific to the Myarc HFDC.

 

I've not been able to find any specific notes on the LOAD opcode, and an example of a file I am using suggests there is more going on.

 

Beery

[PeteE]

35 minutes ago, Jeff White said:

In reviewing how CLR @VDPSTA works on the 9900 versus 9995 and what @PeteE is trying to do, I thought about using ABS @VDPSTA instead which requires reading VDPSTA with both CPU’s.

I looked at ABS also, but initially dismissed it because the number of clock cycles isn't constant based on the source argument: (MSB=0) 12 cycles, (MSB=1) 14 cycles.  The MSB in the VDPSTA register (interrupt flag) will be 0 during scanout, so it would actually be fine.  Thanks!

 

[Tursi]

6 hours ago, Jeff White said:

@Tursi, I think ABS is rarely used.  Do we have a chart of instruction frequency?  ABS is special.  Is there any other assembly instruction that sets status bits on source operand?

My point is it's documented to operate that way even in the Editor/Assembler manual, which is light on detail.

 

We did have someone run a summary of instruction frequency a few years ago, at least I think it was here on AA...

 

[sometimes99er]

50 minutes ago, Tursi said:

We did have someone run a summary of instruction frequency a few years ago, at least I think it was here on AA...

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/212292-pie-in-the-sky/?do=findComment&comment=2754729

Edited January 12 by sometimes99er

[Tursi]

3 hours ago, sometimes99er said:

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/212292-pie-in-the-sky/?do=findComment&comment=2754729

Brilliant, thanks! I was not able to come up with the right search terms to find that.

 

[mizapf]

12 hours ago, BeeryMiller said:

Does the LOAD opcode >05 return anything to the PAB in VRAM beyond the status byte for a Program Image file?  Would the Myarc HFDC return anything more?  Perhaps the program start address and length of file?  This may be something very specific to the Myarc HFDC.

Just recently (it was in the context of copying Adventure files from cassette to disk) I learned that LOAD does not deliver the number of actually loaded bytes, which really surprised me. This would have been trivial to achieve in the DSR; the GeneveOS XOP, however, does return the image size.

[+Airshack]

On 1/1/2021 at 6:50 AM, Asmusr said:

No you don't, you can use a hybrid mode sometimes referred to as 'half bitmap mode', see:

 

http://www.unige.ch/medecine/nouspikel/ti99/tms9918a.htm#hybrid bitmap

 

In this mode you have the advantage of bitmap mode colors but the same characters can be used all over the screen.  So you only need 4 KiB VDP memory instead of 12 KiB.

 

The downside is that you can only use sprites 0-7. If you use sprites 8-31 they will be duplicated (JS99er is the only emulator that emulates the sprite duplication, AFAIK). If you want to avoid the duplication but save some memory, you can use 3 pattern tables but only one color table - that will use 8 KiB. Flying Shark and Titanium, for instance, are using that mode. 

@Asmusr Which of the following hybrid-mode arrangements are you using in Flying Shark and Titanium?

 

Which VR3 and VR4 settings, please?

 

...trying to piece it together along with nouspikel's notes:

 

In summary, these would be the addresses of the tables in 8 possible situations:

VR3	VR4	Mask	Top 3rd	Middle 3rd	Bottom 3rd
>1F	>00	>07FF	>0000	>0000	>0000
>9F	>04	>07FF	>2000	>2000	>2000
>3F	>01	>0FFF	>0000	>0800	>0000
>BF	>05	>0FFF	>2000	>2800	>2000
>5F	>02	>17FF	>0000	>0000	>1000
>DF	>06	>17FF	>2000	>2000	>3000
>7F	>03	>1FFF	>0000	>0800	>1000
>FF	>07	>1FFF	>2000	>2800	>3000

To group characters within a table, we could further alter the color table mask:

• VR3 = >0F results in >400-byte tables. This means that characters >80-FF will have the same colors and definitions than characters >00-7F.
• VR3 = >07 results in >200-byte tables. This means that characters >40-7F, >80-BF and >C0-FF will have the same colors and definitions than characters >00-3F.
• At the extreme, VR3 = >00 results in >40-byte tables. As there are 8 bytes per characters, this means characters are arranged in 8 groups of 32 identical characters: chars 0-7 are identical to chars 8-15, 16-23, etc.
• We could even get weird grouping schemes by using values like >02, >04, >55, etc.

The table below lists the six most logical values, plus two goofy ones (just for fun).

VR3	Mask	Character grouping	Chars	Repeats
>00	>003F	0=8=16...=248 1=9=17...=249 7=15=23...=255	8	32
>01	>007F	0=16=32...=240 1=17=33...=241 15=31=47..=255	16	16
>03	>00FF	0=32=64...=216 1=33=65...=217 31=63=95...=255	32	8
>07	>01FF	0=64=128=192 1=65=129=193 63=127=191=255	64	4
>0F	>03FF	0=128 1=129 127=255	128	2
>1F	>07FF	Each char is unique	256	1
>02	>00BF	0=8=32=40... 4=12=36=44...	16	16
>04	>013F	0=8=16=24=64... 32=40=48=56=96...	16	16

 

[Asmusr]

6 hours ago, Airshack said:

@Asmusr Which of the following hybrid-mode arrangements are you using in Flying Shark and Titanium?

VR3=>9F (one color table at >2000) 

VR4=>03 (three pattern tables at >0000, >0800 and >1000)

 

 

[Asmusr]

The table on Thierry's page "In summary, these would be the addresses..." is always confusing me. If you consider the values in column 1 (VR3) the last three columns show the addresses of the color tables. If you consider the values in column 2 (VR4) the last three columns show the addresses of the pattern tables. But you shouldn't use the values in columns 1 and 2 together because that would place the color and pattern tables on top of each other. Bit value >80 of VR3 should usually always be the inverse of bit value >04 of VR4.    

[+Airshack]

5 hours ago, Asmusr said:

But you shouldn't use the values in columns 1 and 2 together because that would place the color and pattern tables on top of each other.

That’s exactly what I find confusing. There needs to be two separate tables. One for V3 and another for V4. That will clarify things. His V3/V4 table does unnecessarily confuse.

[Tursi]

Unfortunately, both registers impact the masking as a whole, rather than being hard split for one table or the other.

 

I don't know if this helps, but my notes give me something like this:

 

Reg3 MSB (mask >80) determines the base address of the color table, either >2000 or 0. Obviously this is a shift internally, but there are only two legal values.  

 

The rest of Reg3 (mask >7F) sets the mask for the color table. It is shifted up 6 bits with all the new bits being 1. This is an address mask, so the smallest value (>00) would shift the zeros up 6 bits and end up with xx00 0000 0011 1111, or >03F. That allows a 64 byte color table (so, just 8 characters). The biggest value, >7F, becomes xx01 1111 1111 1111, or >1FFF. That's an 8k color table, or 1024 characters (but, of course it's only possible to access 6k or 768 characters.)

 

Reg4 mask >04 specifies the base of the pattern table, either >2000 or 0, again.

The mask for the pattern table comes from two places. Just two bits from Reg4 (the two least significant), and 11 bits from Reg3's mask (after the shift, and again, the least significant). The two bits from Reg4 are shifted 11 places, and the bits from Reg3's are used in place, so something like: xx04 4333 3333 3333. So this is the most confusing part -- that Reg3's mask affects the pattern table as well, except for the top two bits, which come from Reg4. But this makes for some strange combinations being possible, but also guarantees that at least the lowest level, the pattern table will follow the color table. It's probably rare these bits from Reg4 would be anything other than 11 or 00.

 

Again, it's an address mask... so you calculate the offset of the character you are interested in (character code * 8), then AND the mask, then add the base address.