TI Carts in Assembly and GPL

[+acadiel]

(Topic should be "Assembly and GPL" - sorry about that)

 

So - I know that TI for a fact released Tombstone City and TI Invaders as Editor Assembler disks; you can assemble and load the games.

 

They obviously also have GROM cartridges with these programs in them.

 

So, did TI write the programs in GPL /and/ Assembler, or did they transcode the assembler into GPL?

 

Anyone know? I've always been curious about this.

[Asmusr]

A have been wondering the same. Tombstone City and TI Invaders have both ROM and GROM. Perhaps the GROM is used primarily for data?

[+Ksarul]

You can add Munch Man to this list as well. I have one of the disks. . .

[+Lee Stewart]

(Topic should be "Assembly and GPL" - sorry about that).

 

You can change the title of the thread by editing post #1 and choosing "more reply options", especially in the "TI-99/4A Development" subforum.

 

...lee

[+RXB]

A have been wondering the same. Tombstone City and TI Invaders have both ROM and GROM. Perhaps the GROM is used primarily for data?

GPL is excellent at Menu and Input data setup and data for programs.

 

Assembly is horrid at wasting memory, even if you optimize it the amount of time is wasteful for the return.

 

I mean the TI99/4A only has 32K of RAM but has 40K of GROM space per Cart with 16 Slots for 640K of GROM in console alone.

(Even if you only use 6K GROMs that comes to 30K per CART)

 

Now before the SAMS or other expansion memory cards this was your only option, besides with no 32K Expansion you could run games from just a CART.

Edited May 15, 2017 by RXB

[+acadiel]

GPL is excellent at Menu and Input data setup and data for programs.

 

Assembly is horrid at wasting memory, even if you optimize it the amount of time is wasteful for the return.

 

I mean the TI99/4A only has 32K of RAM but has 40K of GROM space per Cart with 16 Slots for 640K of GROM in console alone.

(Even if you only use 6K GROMs that comes to 30K per CART)

 

Now before the SAMS or other expansion memory cards this was your only option, besides with no 32K Expansion you could run games from just a CART.

 

So, it's obvious that TI wrote TI Invaders, Tombstone City, and Munchman in Assembly. We have the source for all three. My question is how did they translate this into GPL to work with the GROMs? Did they have some internal Assembly->GPL conversion utility on their 990?

[Asmusr]

If you look at the GROM for TI Invaders in a graphics ripper it appears that at least one 3rd of the space is used for graphics.

 

 

The list file produced from the assembling the source code also shows that there's roughly 5K data and 6.5K program. So the machine code would fit nicely into the ROM and the GROM could be used for loading data alone (except for a GPL header to bootstrap the program).

 

I don't know if my theory is correct, but if I was to convert an assembly program into running from ROM/GROM this it how I would do it.

tiinv.lst

[jedimatt42]

We heard from John Philips (a developer of TI titles BITD) not long ago, and he stated that is exactly what he would do: he used the Groms for data and the Rom for code.

 

[email protected]

[sometimes99er]

Remember that TI Invaders is 4K ROM and 6K GROM. This GROM picture is much the same as the one Rasmus posted, and limited to the 6K.

 

[S1500]

Fascinating. What does a graphics rip of Munch Man look like? N/M I found the thread for it, started by me. Heh

Edited May 16, 2017 by S1500