Learn Multi platform 6502 Assembly Programming... For Monsters!

Platform Specific Lessons

Introduction to the Platform Specific Series...
In this series of tutorials we're going to cover how to do simple common tasks on multiple 6502 systems... 

The lessons will cover how to do each task (where possible) on all the systems and create functions that can be called in a common way, so we will create a 'common library' of functions you can use in your own programs to write platform independent 6502 code...

You should know 6502 already, If you don't please go through the Basic 6502 Assembly Lessons first!

Each lesson will have a matching Video tutorial, and if you just want the code, you can skip knowing how it works, and just download the code!

Enough talk, let's start creating code, and put those 6502 machines to work!


Lesson P1 - Bitmap Functions on the BBC

The BBC has a variety of graphics modes - at this time, we'll just be looking at the 320x200 4 color mode - Mode 1... this screen mode actually goes up to 256 lines, but we'll make it smaller to save memory

Screen data is memory mapped... but on the BBC it's in a slightly odd format... lets take a look!

Screen Layout on the BBC
The screen layout on the BBC is not the same as used by most other systems (though is used on the C64)...
The screen is split up into 8 pixel tall strips... and these are stored in memory Y first... then X

Lets imagine we write bytes to consecutive memory addresses (displayed as 0-641 in the diagram to the right)...
when we write to the first 8 pixels, they go DOWN the screen... but the 9th pixel will go back up to the top of the strip

This will continue untill the far right of the screen... then the next byte will be the far left of the next 8 pixel tall strip.

These tutorials will currently only cover Mode 1 - which offers 320x200 4-color bitmap graphics - at this time the other screen modes won't be covered...

The reason for this is that the screen resolution and color depth makes it good for games - but it uses a lot of memory - so it's not suitable for 16k machines...
We may cover other screen modes later - but for now we're just going to cover this one!

Screen Setup on the BBC
Setting up the screen on the BBC requires configuring the CRTC to define the size and position of the screen with $FE00 (control) and $FE01 (data), and the ULA, which sets the graphics mode with $FE20 (mode), and colors with $FE21 (colors)

The way we set up the colors is rather odd, we need to define 16 definitions that map bit layouts to colors - in 4 color mode this means we have to set 4 settings to the same color to have the screen work as we'd expect!... we'll see this later!
From To Purpose
$FE00 $FE07 6845 CRTC  Video controller  18
$FE20 $FE2F Video ULA  Video system chip  19

Color Num EOR Color
0 7 Black
1 6 Red
2 5 Green
3 4 Yellow
4 3 Blue
5 2 Magenta
6 1 Cyan
7 0 White
RegNum register description Mode 1
320x256 4 color
$FE20 Screen mode $D8
0 Horizontal total $7F
1 Horizontal displayed characters $50
2 Horizontal sync position $62
3 Horizontal sync width/Vertical sync time $28
4 Vertical total $26
5 Vertical total adjust $00
6 Vertical displayed characters $19
7 Vertical sync position $22
8 Interlace/Display delay/Cursor delay $01
9 Scan lines per character $07
10 Cursor start line and blink type $30
11 Cursor end line $00
12 Screen start address H (Address /8) $08
13 Screen start address L  (Address /8) $30
This tutuorial uses Mode 1 (320x256 @ 4 color)... however depending on your requirements you may prefer to use Mode 5 (160x256 @ 4 color) or Mode 4 (320x256 @ 2 color)... it will just depend on your graphical requirements and how much memory you can spare!

Lets set up the screen!

We're going to need to define the settings we want to use for our screen layout and colors...

The values shown here will set up a screen 320x200 or 256x192, and set a 4 color palette with a blue background

The Color definitions are odd!... each Byte is spilt onto two nibbles which we'll call $SC... S is the screen nibble (Logical color), and C is the resulting color (physical color) - selected from the EOR column in the chart shown above...

We should set all 4 of the C nibbles to the same color for a 'normal screen... if we do not - opposite columns will have different colors, or pixels with different colored neighbors will be strange - try different settings to see what happens!

Note registers 12 and 13... these define the memory address of the screen - however for reasons unknown, you have to divide the address by 8... we've mapped the 256 pixel wide to $5000... or the 320 pixel wide one to $4130 - so the screen goes up to the $8000 area (the top address on a 32k machine)
When it comes to setting up the screen we need to send the bytes to the hardware...

When we want to set CRTC registers, we send the register number we want to set to address $FE00, and we send the data for that register to $FE01

This will set up the Screen position.

Next we need to set the Screen mode - we select Mode 1 by sending $D8 to address $FE20

Finally, we need to set up the colors, we do this by sending 16 bytes to $FE21 to define the color layout onscreen.
It doesn't look like the Horizontal and Vertocal sync registers have any effect on BeebEM ... it seems like maybe these aren't supported by the emulator?

The values here should work, but the author of these tutorials doesn't own a BBC so it's not been tested on real hardware!... feel free to donate one if you're not happy with that!


Drawing to the screen
We're going to draw our Chibiko character to the screen! - we can convert a bitmap into the correct format for the BBC screen.

We can just write data to video ram to draw, but we need a way of working out the correct location to draw to... we'll define a function called GetCursorPos

This will take an X,Y position (in bytes)  in the X and Y registers and will set a Zero Page pair Z_DE to the destination screen address...

We can then write out bytes to that address to draw our bitmap!
The GetScreenPos function is pretty long, but the concept is pretty simple...

First we take the Xpos and we multiply it by 8 - this is because there's 8 lines of bytes between each column, due to the way the screen is structured...

On a 320 pixel wide screen, each strip of 8 lines is $280 bytes wide... on the 256 pixel wide screen it's $200 (which is much easier to calculate!)

We ignore the bottom 3 bits of the Y line - to get the 'strip' number - then multiply this by either $280 or $200 to get the offset - we do this by bitshifting the Y pos into the $02 and $08 (in the case of 320 screens) , and save these in zero page Z_DE 

Finally we add the start address of the screen... the settings we're using map it to the top of the memory area - so we either add $5000 (for the 256 pixel screen) or $4180 (for the 320 pixel screen)
If we're within an 8 line strip, we can move down a line just by INCing DE

Really this is just here for compatibility with other systems!
Note: Because the BBC works in 8 pixel tall strips, the GetScreenPos function ignores the bottom 3 bits of the Y line - if you need that functionality, you can add it to the function - of course, this would make the function slightly slower, but if it's what you need, then go for it!

Using these functions!
We're going to use Z_HL as the source data of our bitmap
When it comes to drawing the bitmap, we're going to do it in 8 pixel tall 'Strips' to match the screen layout...

At the start of each strip, we're going to use GetScreenPos to work out the position to write to... we're then going to write bytes from Z_HL (the bitmap) to Z_DE (the screen) using Y as an offset count...

Once we've written all the bytes within this strip, we'll move Y down 8 lines, update Z_HL to move past the data we've just copied

We now reapeat the procedure until the bitmap is drawn!
Warning! This routine uses Y as a counter for bytes within the current strip... that means this function will only work for a bitmap upto 32 bytes (128 pixels) wide... if you need more - you're going to have to do the work yourself!

What? you want it ALL doing for you? - yeah good luck with that!


Lesson P2 - Bitmap Functions on the Atari 800 / 5200
The Atari 5200 and 800 are capable of 320x200 in 2 colors, or 160x200 in 4 colors - and the screen layout is a typical bitmap - so it should be easy to use...

Unfortunately, setting it up is hard - we need to define a 'Display list' which configures the screen layout, and the A5200 and A800 have graphics hardware at different memory locations!... Lets learn how to make it behave!


Hardware Addresses
The Screen on the Atari 800 and Atari 5200 is defined by a 'Display list' ... this defines the screen mode of each line of the screen... in theory we could change modes on various lines, like the Enterprise 128, but really we just want it to be the same the whole time...

We'll need to use the GTIA and ANTIC to control the screen... but unfortunately the GTIA is mapped to different memory addresses on the 5200 and 800:


Atari 5200 Atari 800
Cart ROM $4000 $A000
GTIA (Graphics) $C000 $D000
POKEY (Sound) $E800 $D200
PIA Not present $D300
ANTIC $D400 $D400

Here are the registers we're going to use:

Name Description Address A80 Address A52
COLPF0 Color/brightness of setcolor 0 $D016 $C016
COLPF1 color/brightness of setcolor 1 $D017 $C017
COLPF2 color/brightness of setcolor 2 $D018 $C018
COLPF3 color/brightness of setcolor 3 $D019 $C019
COLBK color/brightness of setcolor 4 $D01A $C01A
DMACTL Direct Memory access control (DMA) $D400 $D400
DLISTL display list pointer low byte $D402 $D402
DLISTH display list pointer high byte $D403 $D403

Screen Modes
The Atari 800 & 5200 have a variety of modes - we can change mode every line of the screen - but some modes are 'taller' than others... here are the options - note: we're only going to look at modes E and F in these tutorials

Antic
Mode
Basic
Mode
Colors Lines Width Bytes per
Line
Screen Ram
(Bytes)
2 0 2 8 40 40 960
3 N/A 2 10 40 40 760
4 N/A 4 8 40 40 960
5 N/A 4 16 40 40 480
6 1 5 8 20 20 480
7 2 5 16 20 20 240
8 3 4 8 40 10 240
9 4 2 4 80 10 480
A 5 4 4 80 20 960
B 6 2 2 160 20 1920
C N/A 2 1 160 20 3840
D 7 4 2 160 40 3840
E N/A 4 1 160 40 7680
F 8 2 1 320 40 7680

Defining our Display List

We need to use a variety of commands to define our Display list:
Command  Function
$x0-$xF  Screen mode change
$70  8 Blank lines
$4x $BB $AA  Start Screen mode x at address $AABB
 $41 $BB $AA   Wait for Vblank, and restart display list at $AABB

There are a variety of rules we need to obey when we create our Display List

1. The display list must not cross over a 1k boundary (align on a byte boundary)
2. The screen data cannot go over a 4k boundary UNLESS you manually restart the memory position with $4x $BB $AA
3. The display list must start with three $70 commands for VBLANK
4. The list must end with $41 $BB $AA... where $AABB is a pointer to the start of the list.

Here's the display list we'll be using!

We're defining the definition at the end of our rom, so that it won't go over a 1k boundary...

We're using the 'smode' symbol for our screen mode - this will support mode E or F - as they use the same amount of screen ram...

Notice, half way through the definition we're using $40 to restart the screen ram - we have to do this because our 7K screen MUST go over a 4K boundary, and the screen will wrap unless we manually step into the $3000 address...
When we want to start the screen, we need to load the display list address into $D402 (DLISTH/L)

We then need to start the screen processing the list, by writing %00100010 to $D400 (DMACTL)
This template will work for screen modes  E or F - but if you want to use different modes, or you want to change mode midscreen, you'll want to write a new one... just make sure you follow the rules, and you should be OK!

Setting up our base palette
We'll be using 2 and 4 color mode on the Atari...

4 color mode is pretty straightforward, but 2 color mode is a bit odd...

In 2 color mode only the BRIGHTNESS of the 2nd color is used - they'll both be the same color as the background!
Colors on the Atari will differ depending on if you're using PAL or NTSC...

there also seems to be an inconsistency in the way Atari800win and Jum52 work with 2 color mode - but this may be a bug in the emulator!

Calculating screen memory position with GetScreenPos
We're going to calculate the screen position - each line of the screen is 40 bytes, and our screen starts at $2060... so our calculation for the screen position is $2060+(40*Ypos)+Xpos

F E D C B A 9 8  
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
40 in binary = 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0
We load Y into the top byte Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Perform 3x ROR, then add to total 0 0 0 Y Y Y Y Y
Y Y Y 0 0 0 0 0
Perform 2x ROR then add to total 0 0 0 0 0 Y Y Y
Y Y Y Y Y 0 0 0
We�ve effectively multiplied Y by 40!
















When we call this function, register X will be the Xpos, and Y will be the Ypos

We start by moving X into zeropage address z_e

Next we'll move Y into z_b, and set z_d and A to zero

We're now going to shift 3 bits from z_b to A... we'll add this to z_de

Then we'll shift another 2 bits from z_b to A... we'll add this to z_de as well... we've now effectively added Y*40

Now we add the screen base... this completes the address calculation


As the lines are directly beneath each other in memory, we just add 40 to move down a line
When we want to move down a line, we just add 40 to the current position

Doing the 'Multiplication' by bitshifts is confusing to look at but it's faster...

Using a loop with Y and repeatedly calling GetNextLine would work and be simpler, but it would be much slower!

Showing the bitmap to the screen
We're going to use z_hl to point to the source bitmap.

We'll use GetScreenPos to set z_de to the destination

When we want to get a bitmap onto the screen we'll use Y as an offset to copy each line from the source to the destination....

We'll then move down a screen line by using GetNextLine...
and we'll add Y to HL to move the source data for the next line...

we'll repeat the procedure until we've don all the lines.

Lesson P3 - Bitmap Functions on the Apple II
The Apple 2 has an odd screen! with a 280x192 screen size, and a screen that is neither quite 2 color or 4 color where 7 pixels are contained within each byte, it's strange indeed...

Lets try and figure it out!


Highres Screen - Screen Colors
Colors on the Apple II are effectively an 'Artifact' of the screen...

certain combinations of Off (0) and On (1) pixels will appear colored... this is known as Composite Artifact colors...

Unlike pretty much every system in existance, 8 bits of a byte draw 7 pixels!.... the top bit is a 'Color bit'... selecting 'Palette 0 or 1

The remaining 7 bits are the 7 pixels of bitmap data... because each line is 40 bytes wide, the Apple II screen is a rather odd resolution of 280�192
Bitnum 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
Function  Color   Pixel 1   Pixel 2   Pixel 3   Pixel 4   Pixel 5   Pixel 6   Pixel 7 


Pixel Pair
Color Bit   00     01     10     11  
0 00
01
10
11
1 00
01
10
11
Because of these artifacts, a '2 color' bitmap will show colors depending on the combination of the pixels...

My Akusprite editor offers a half horizontal resolution mode, where the 4 colors will be converted to the correct bit combinations
Normal Pixel data - 2 color Half Horizontal resolution - 4 color

It's important to understand there isn't a separate 2 and 4 color mode, it's just the combination of pixels that will appear different colors...

AkuSprite Editor halves horizontal resolution when exporting 4 colors... but If you're super smart ,you could have both the colors, and better resolution, by cleverly laying out the pixels!

Highres Screen Mode 2 - Memory map
Memory addresses for Screen Mode 2 is split into 3 chunks,also, every 8 lines we effectively 'reset' our high memory address and add $80


Pixels in Each line are in normal Left->Right format, however remeber 7 pixels are defined by each byte, with 1 bit defining the color palette.

We can calculate the address of the start of a line by splitting the bits of the Y line number...

On the Apple II the graphics screen can start at $2000 or $4000 ... we'll put it at $4000 so it's out the way of our program code!
YPOS:
 7  6  5  4  3  2  1  0
A A B B B C C C

Address= Base+ (AA*$0028) + (BBB*$0080) + (CC*$0400) + XPOS

From To Purpose
$0400 $07FF Text Screen Page 1
$0800 $0BFF Text Screen Page 2
$0C00 $1FFF Free space
$2000 $3FFF Graphics Screen Page 1
$4000 $5FFF Graphics Screen Page 2

Initializing the screen
We need to 'set' a variety of ports to enable the screen in the mode we need...
We just need to read or write to or from ports $C050,$C052,$C055 and $C057 to set up the screen mode we need...

Just accessing the ports has the effect of setting up the hardware!
Address Code Details
C050 TXTCLR Display Graphics
C051 TXTSET Display Text
C052 MIXCLR Display Full Screen
C053 MIXSET Display Split Screen
C054 TXTPAGE1 Display Page 1
C055 TXTPAGE2 Display Page 2
C056 LORES Display LoRes Graphics
C057 HIRES Display HiRes Graphics
To init the screen, we just need to INIT the screen, displaying Fullscreen graphics... setting HighRes mode, and Setting Page2 - so the screen memory is $4000-$5FFF

It seems any data written to, or read from these ports will lave the effect of causing the setting change...

we're using LDA here, but STA will work too, and any value can be written, and the effect will be the same... weird eh?

GetScreenPos to select memory location by XY co-ordinate
When we want to draw on the screen, we'll need to calculate the correct memory position to write the data to...

We'll do this with 'GetScreenPos'... it'll use the X and Y regster to specify a co-ordinate, and calculates the equivalent memory location in the zeropage pair defined by  z_de

We split up the Y-pos, and multiply each part according to the foruma below...

YPOS:
 7  6  5  4  3  2  1  0
A A B B B C C C

Address= Base+ (AA*$0028) + (BBB*$0080) + (CC*$0400) + XPOS
Within an 8 line 'block'... We can move down a line by just adding $0400... but we'll have to recalculate the X,Y co-ordinate after that.

Drawing a bitmap to the screen
When it comes to drawing the bitmap to the screen, we just need to use GetScreenPos to calculate the destination in z_de...

Then we copy lines of data from the source bitmap in z_hl...

For the first 8 lines, we can use GetNextLine to calculate the next screen position, but after that we need to call GetScreenPos again to recalculate the new position



Normal Pixel data - 2 color Half Horizontal resolution - 4 color

Lesson P4 - Bitmap Functions on the Atari Lynx
Unlike most of our systems The Lynx has a 16 color Bitmap screen - effectively we can just write data to it - one nibble per color to ram, and it will appear on screen!

We do need to do a bit of setup first to get it working!


Lynx Graphics
The 160x102 video display is created by 8k of normal memory, and we can just write data into it to set pixels...

This is no different to a machine like the BBC - but what is quite odd is the Hardware Sprites of the Lynx... a normal hardware sprite system would be in a separate layer which is drawn, but on the Lynx that's not the case...

The Lynx's hardware sprite processor (Suzy) reads compressed sprite data from normal CPU ram, and renders the sprite data back into normal CPU ram!... the sprite CPU is EXTREMELY fast - so this is pretty much instant - and means the Lynx is capable of quickly drawing a HUGE number of hardware sprites!

We're not going to use sprites today, but it's important to understand that the Lynx screen is 100% bitmap based!

Graphics Hardware Settings
We're going to use a variety of hardware addresses to set up the screen... though most are actually for sprite settings...

One VERY important thing is that when setting 16 bit HL pairs, we MUST set the Low value first... as writing to the Low value will reset the High value
From To Name Description Bits Meaning
FC04 FC05 HOFF Offset to H edge of screen

FC06 FC07 VOFF Offset to V edge of screen

FC08 FC09 VIDBAS Base address of video build buffer (for Sprites)

FC10 FC11 SCBNEXT Address of next SCB

FC28 FC29 HSIZOFF Horizontal size offset

FC2A FC2B VSIZOFF Vertical Size Offset

FC82 FC82 SPRCOLL Sprite Collision Number (W)

FC83 FC83 SPRINT Sprite Initialization Bits (W)(U)
Set to '$F3' after at least 100ms after power up
and before any sprites are drawn.
FC90 FC90 SUZYBUSEN Suzy bus enable FF

FC91 FC91 SPRGO Sprite Process start bit ---E-S S=Sprites on E=Everon detector(?)
FC92 FC92 SPRSYS System Control Bits (RW)


Setting up Screen Memory

The lynx uses 8160 bytes of ram, and the screen memory  can be positioned anywhere within the address space... in fact we would often want two 8k screen buffers - one visible, and one being drawn

In these examples we'll just use one , so we'll draw straight to the visible screen...

We also set up the screen 'offsets' - these are used for sprite 'clipping' (where sprites are partially offscreen, and we'll need them later!.... at the same time we'll set up a few other sprite defaults, though we don't really need them today,

Finally we'll set up some default colors so we can see our screen and text.

We're loading the screen-buffer at $C000 - near the top of the memory map - but you can load it anywhere you want - also remember, despite the confusion of hardware sprites, we can treat the Lynx screen as a simple bitmap... Grime 6502 did this - it never used hardware sprites - and in fact, for a 6502 the Lynx is very fast anyway - so you may never need hardware sprites!

Calculating memory position by X,Y pos
Each line in the screen is 80 bytes, so to calculate a screen pos we just multiply Y*80 and add X to get our offset from the base...

To effect the multiplication, we'll shift the Y value into the two positions that make up 80 in binary, and add the values to the resulting address

F E D C B A 9 8  
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
80 in binary = 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0
We load Y into the top byte Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Perform 2x ROR, then add to total 0 0 Y Y Y Y Y Y
Y Y 0 0 0 0 0 0
Perform 2x ROR then add to total 0 0 0 0 0 Y Y Y
Y Y Y Y 0 0 0 0
We�ve effectively multiplied Y by 80!
















This function takes an Xpos in bytes and, Ypos in lines in the XY registers.

When it comes to calculating the address, we use A as the top byte, and z_c as the low one...

We load in Y - and shift two bits into z_c... we then store the pair in z_d and z_e

Now we shift another two bits... and add to z_d and z_e.... along with the base address of the screen ($C000)

Finally we add the X pos, and any carry as required - we've now got the memory address of the required byte in z_de
We can move down a line by just adding 80 to z_de

Drawing to the screen
It's easy to draw a bitmap to the screen, we can just load the bytes from memory (pointed to by z_hl), get the destination with the GetScreenPos function we just defined, and then copy bytes to z_de

After each line, we need to move down a line, and start drawing again - until all the lines of the bitmap are drawn
The bitmap will be drawn onscreen at the position we specify
Apart from its' small screen, the Lynx is one of the best systems we'll be looking at! It has 16 colors - but unlike a tile based system, we can plot data in memory easily!...

Of course if you like the tile based way of doing things, the SNES or PC-Engine may suit you better... Though technically they aren't 6502 based.

Lesson P5 - Bitmap Functions on the PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16)
The PC Engine is a Tile/Sprite based system capable of 16 colors per tile...

We're going to learn how to use these tiles to draw our 'Chibiko' character onto the screen

BmpTest.asm


The PC-Engine Graphics system
The PC Engine graphics hardware has 64k of ram... but it's designed for 128k... it's controlled by a set of registers... we have 3 hardware ports we use to control the hardware... these are usually memory mapped to $0000 ... but we also have special commands to quickly write fixed values to the graphics system

We ALWAYS write data to the graphics system registers in HL byte pairs... Little Endian, so low byte first.

To write data to the memory we set the address we want to write to with MAWR... but please note , we're only setting the last 16 of the 17 bits... for example, if we set MAWR to $3FFF (%11111111111111), the actual memory address will be %111111111111110

The effect is, that there are 2 bytes at VRAM $0000... and two bytes at VRAM $0001 ... and these bytes DO NOT OVERLAP!
Memory address Command  Purpose
$0?00 ST0 xx Select Register xx
$0?02 ST1 xx Reg Val L=xx
$0?03 ST2 xx Reg Val H=xx

The PC Engine documentation will often show writes to the video hardware at $0000,$0002 and $0003 - but VASM will confuse these with Zero page addressing, so we'll write to $0100,$0102 and $0103 instead

The ports repeat every 4 bytes, so this has the same effect, and gets around the limitation of the assembler.


Graphics Registers
There are a variety of Graphics registers, but at this time the main ones we'll need are 0 (Select WRITE)  and 2 (Data), these will allow us to write data to the Vram

Reg Name Meaning Bits
00 MAWR Memory Address Write
01 MARR Memory Address Read
02 VRR/VWR Vram Data Write / Vram Data Read
03


04


05 CR Control - - - IW IW DR TE TE BB SB EX EX IE IE IE IE (BB= Background on) (SB=Sprites on)
06 RCR Scanning Line Detection
07 BXR BGX Scroll ------XX XXXXXXXX
08 BYR BGY Scroll -------Y YYYYYYYY
09 MWR Memory Access Width - - - - - - - - CM SCR SCR SCR SM SM WV WV
0A HSR Horizontal Sync
0B HDR Horizontal Display
0C VPR Vertical Sync
0D BDW Vertical Display
0E BCR Vertical Display End Position
0F DCR Block Transfer Control
10 SOUR Block Transfer Source Address
11 DESR Block Transfer Destination Address
12 LENR Block Transfer Length
13 SATB VRAM-SATB Block Transfer Source

Vram Layout
Memory in the Vram is not entirely fixed in purpose, this means you can have weird effects, like using the same memory area for your Tilemaps - and tile definitions (Patterns)... this is totally useless, as one will corrupt the other,
but we have to understand it's possible to understand the memory... as stated before, each address has 2 bytes...

A Pattern (tile definition) is 32 bytes in size (4 bitplanes, 8 lines)... and because each memory address in the Vram map contains 2 bytes... the pattern will take up 16 memory addresses... this means tile 0 starts at $0000... and tile 1 is at $0010

NOW... the TileMap has to be at $0000 .. and it takes AT LEAST $0400 (it's minimum size is 32x32, and each definition takes 2 bytes)... for ease, it's probably easiest to start your pattern definitions at no 256 (memory address $1000)
Vram From Vram To Purpose
$0000 $03FF Min Tilemap (Tiles 0-63)
$0400 $0FFF Possible Tilemap (Tiles 64-255)
$1000 $7FFF Tiles 256-2048
$7F00 $7FFF SATB sprite table
$8000 $FFFF PC-Engine only has 64k, so this is unused

Initializing the Screen
To start the screen we need to access Register 5 (the control register) we do this by using ST0 with the parameter #5

We need to turn on the background tilemap with Bit 7, we'll also turn on sprites with Bit 6 (We'll need them later)... we write this using ST1 - we also use ST2 #0, as the registers take 2 bytes

Next we need to define our tilemap with Reg 9... we're going to define a 32x32 tilemap for our background.

We need to initialize the position of the tilemap with registers 7 & 8... for some reason 0,0 will not be the top corner unless we set the Ypos to 248!

Last we'll set the background color to blue by setting entry 0 in the VCE to a blue color... By default all the colors are white, and we wouldn't be able to see anything!

We're setting up a scrolling area of 32x32, but the visible screen is 32x29 - if we were making a game with a scrolling background, it would make sense to have a scrolling area of 64x32 or more,

It just depends what you're doing, Grime 6502 has no scrolling, so this layout was fine!

Drawing our bitmap
We're going to draw our 'Chibiko' character to the screen... the character bitmap is 48x48 , we're going to have to split it into 8x8 tiles to get it onto our screen...

The tiles are defined in Vram from $1000-$7FFF - this range will have tile numbers 256+ , but the first few will be used by our font, so we'll start at tile 384 (256+192)
We're going to use the function DefineTiles to transfer the bitmap data to Vram... the source will be defined by zeropage addresses defined as z_H and z_L

The Bytecount will be defined by z_B and z_C

the destination memory address will be defined by z_DE.... each tile is 32 bytes, and we're going to write to tile 256+128 (384)... so we'll be writing to memory address $1800


Once our tiles are defined, we going to draw them to the screen with the FillAreaWithTiles command... this takes an X and Y pos in z_B and z_C

We also need a width and height - which we'll store in X and Y...

We'll load the first tile as 128 into A - though the function will add 256 automatically (for compatibility with systems other than the PCE)




VRAM functions
Our PrepareVram function will send the address in z_HL to the address select register at $0102 (ST1) and $0103 (ST2) - this will prepare Vram to Write (or read) data
We're going to create a function called GetVDPScreenPos - this will convert an XY co-ordinate in z_b and z_c into a memory address - effectively setting the VRAM write location for the selected tile number

We do this by multiplying our Ypos by 32 (the width of each line in tiles) and adding the Xpos.

We have to split the Ypos calculation into two parts, as part of this needs to be passed in the High byte,


Finally, we have an extra option called ScrWid256 - this will center the screen to simulate a 256x192 screen (used for Grime 68000)

Remember, We're using $0102 and $0103 to write data - you may see elsewhere $0002 an $0003 used for the same purpose, but this confuses VASM - as it mistakes them for the zero page... But whatever you use the result is the same, as the ports repeat every four bytes!

Getting Tiles to the screen
Our DefineTiles function will use the PrepareVram function to get the memory ready to receive data.

We'll then stream the bytes to vram via Register 2....  we have to write in pairs, as the Vram works in Words...

We keep repeating the process until z_bc reaches zero
Now we've defined our tiles, it's time to set the Tilemap to show them, we do this with FillAreaWithTiles...

This will use the GetVDPScreenPos function to calculate a memory address, and then we'll write tile numbers to the vram - into the tilemap.... note, the high byte is 1 - as all tile numbers on the PcEngine have 256 added to them

We loop until we get to the end of the line, then we repeat - recalculating our VDPScreenPos until we've done all the lines.

By the end of this procedure, our character will be drawn to the screen!

We've seen how to use tiles to get graphics on the screen, we do the same for the font, we've just defined the first 128 characters as our letters, and we set parts of the tilemap as needed...

We can do the same to make a simple game, see Grime 6502... if you want to do better graphics, you want to use sprites, we'll look at those later!



Tilemap Definitions
As with everything else on the PC engine Vram... each tile definiton takes one memory address, which contains 2 bytes...

The top 4 bits pppp define a 16 color palette number from 0-15...
The remaining 12 bits nnnn nnnnnnnn define the tile number -

as stated, the first 64-256 probably can't be used because they overlap the tilemap... no's 2048-4095 CANNOT be used, as the memory these would use would be 64k-128k... and this memory is not installed in the PC Engine.
ppppnnnn nnnnnnnn

If you use AkuSprite Editor (included in the Sources.7z) you won't need to worry about the data format of the tiles - as it's a little odd!

But if you do, then you'll need to know about the format, shown below!
Tile definitions
Tile definitions use 4 bitplanes for 16 colors, and tile definitions are 8x8 - so 32 bytes ... Data is transfered in Words, and rather strangely we send bitplane 1+2 of lines, one at a time... then we do the same for bitplanes 3 and 4

Byte 1 Byte 2
First 16 bytes 00111100
01111111
01100011
01100011
01111111
01100011
01100011
00000000
00222200
02222222
02200022
02200022
02222222
02200022
02200022
00000000
Second 16 bytes 00333300
03333333
03300033
03300033
03333333
03300033
03300033
00000000
00444400
04444444
04400044
04400044
04444444
04400044
04400044
00000000

Lesson P6 - Bitmap Functions on the NES / Famicom
The NES and Famicom use a graphics system called the PPU - they are also Tile / Sprite based systems, with a grid of 8x8 tiles in the background.

As with the PCE, we'll use these to draw our Chibiko character bitmap to the screen as a set of tiles.

BmpTest.asm


The NES/Famicom Graphics Hardware
The NES has dedicated VRAM which contains tile patterns and the Tilemap... We'll need the patterns for our font and the bitmap definitions, and set these in the TileMap to see them onscreen.

By default the NES has just 2k of VRAM, and tile definitions are in ROM, but we'll use 'Memory Mapper 4' - a cartridge based upgrade - this increases VRAM up to 8k, and allows us to define patterns in RAM like on other systems!

On an emulator, we just define the mapper we need in the cartridge header...

When it comes to using VRAM, and the graphics hardware in general we use the PPU ports...

PPU (Nes graphics hardware) Graphics ports
The PPU is the NES and Famicom's Graphics system, it's controlled by 8 registers between $2000 and $2007... we use these to check and set attributes of the system. and write to VRAM (which isn't in the normal memory map!)

Some of these ports take two bytes - both should be written consecutively to the same port...
Strangely, when we want to write to VRAM, it's in Big Endian mode - so we have to send the High byte, then the Low byte... the opposite of the normal 6502!

Port Name Bits Details Notes
$2000 PPUCTRL N-SBPIAA N=NMI on vblank
S=Sprite size
B=Back Pattern Table 
P=sprite Pattern table
I=Increment vram address
AA=Name Table address 



I=0 means +1 , I=1 means +32
$2001 PPUMASK CCCBSsbM CCC=Color emphasis
B=Background on
S=Sprite on
s=sprite clip 
b=back clip
M=monochrome



s= 0 - hides leftmost 8 pixels
b= 0 - hides leftmost 8 pixels
$2002 PPUSTATUS

Read resets PPUSCROLL
$2003 OAMADDR
Sprite address  (0-255)
$2004 OAMDATA
Sprite data (to write to addr, autoincs)
$2005 PPUSCROLL XXXXXXXX YYYYYYYYY Select X offset and Y Offset
$2006 PPUADDR HHHHHHHH LLLLLLLL Select Address to write to (Big Endian!) Write  resets PPUSCROLL
$2007 PPUDATA BBBBBBBB Byte to write to address in $2006

Vram Layout
Specify a memory address by writing the byte pair to $2006... HIGH BYTE FIRST... (Big Endian)

NOTE: Writing to VRAM outside of VBLANK will cause problems... also note, selecting an address resets PPUSCROLL

EG, lets point to $3F00... and write $11 to the first palette entry!

    lda #$3F      ;High byte
    sta $2006    ;Send to vram select
    lda #$00      ;Low byte
    sta $2006    ;Send to vram select

    lda #$11       ;New value
    sta $2007    ;Send to write data
Vram From Vram To Purpose
$0000 $0FFF Pattern Table 0
$1000 $1FFF Pattern Table 1 
$2000 $23FF NameTable 0 (32x30)
$2400 $27FF NameTable 1
$2800 $2BFF NameTable 2
$2C00 $2FFF NameTable 3
$3000 $3EFF Copy of $2000-$2EFF
$3F00 $3F1F Palette definitions
$3F20 $3FFF Copies of $3F20-$3FFF

Pattern Definitions for sprites and tiles
The NES has 2 pattern tables, they are selected with PPU Register $2000 Bit 4 & 3
Basic NES roms have pattern definitions in ROM (CHR-ROM), but we can use a mapper with extra video ram to make things easier - in these tutorials we'll use Mapper 2 - so we don't have to worry about CHR-ROM and can change the patterns whenever we like!

The Famicom uses bitplanes for it's data - 2 bitplanes for 4 colors... this means a tile uses 16 bytes
First we send all 8 lines of the first bitplane, Next we send all 8 lines of the second bitplane.

Byte Data
First 8 bytes 00111100
01111111
01100011
01100011
01111111
01100011
01100011
00000000
Second 8 bytes 00222200
02222222
02200022
02200022
02222222
02200022
02200022
00000000

You shouldn't need to worry about the tile format if you use AkuSprite Editor - the open source sprite editor supplied with these tutorials will do the work for you.

The NES 'Save Raw bitmap' option was used to convert the sample bitmap into a grid of tiles in the correct format for the NES!

Turning On the screen
We need to turn on the screen before we can see anything, we do this with port $2001... we also need to turn on our VBLANK interrupts with the PPUCTRL


The NES graphics system has an annoying limitation!

Whenever we write data to the VDP it will mess up the display scroll position, so there may be times we need to turn the screen off - as a way of solving the problem, we do this by clearing the same two ports
As writing to the PPU will mess up the scroll position, we'll define a function to reset it.

This sets the correct values to position the tilemap, so the byte at VRAM address $2000 is the top left of the tile map
We can't write to VRAM outside of VBLANK (The time the screen is not being drawn)... because of this we're going to need a function to wait for VBLANK to restart.

We do this by checking a zero page entry 'Vblanked' - and waiting for it to change... our interrupt handler will change this value when the interrupt occurs

We'll see an interrupt handler later in the lesson!

Every time we write to the screen, we need first wait for VBLANK (when the screen isn't being drawn) and also reset our scroll after we're done.

This is a real pain, but we'll learn a trick to work around it!

Getting our character to the screen (Via the tilemap)
We're going to show our Chibiko character to the screen!

The bitmap is 48x48 - and so as our tiles are 8x8, we'll be splitting it up into a grid of 6x6 tiles (36 tiles)

We'll use two commands to do this, one will send our bitmap data to the VDP defining the Tile patterns, the other will set the Tilemap to show those patterns to the screen
The code we'll be using to get the bitmap to the screen is the same as on the PC engine... the only difference is the destination address of the data...

As the first 128 tile patterns are used by our font, we'll be using tiles 128+... as NES tiles are 2bit per pixel (4 color) each 8x8 tile is 16 bytes... so tile 128 is at memory address $0800... we load this into z_de zero page addresses

We load the source bitmap into z_hl  and the size of the bitmap in z_bc

the DefineTiles function will copy the data into the VRAM

Once the tiles are defined, we set the XY pos to draw to in z_bc, and the WIDTH/HEIGHT in the X/Y registers... we also set the first tile in register A , then we call FillAreaWithTiles to draw the bitmap to screen

Defining Tiles
We're going to define our Chibiko character...

Sending data to VRAM will mess up the screen, so we'll first turn off the screen,

We'll then use the PrepareVRAM command to select the destination address

Once that's done, all we need to do is send each of the bytes of our character to address $2007 (PPUDATA)

After all the data is sent, we turn the screen back on!
The Prepare VRAM command is also very simple, to select the memory address in zero page entries z_de, we just write the high byte z_d to address $2006 (PPU ADDR), then the low byte z_e to the same address..

This sets the address the data will be written!

Showing the tiles
As we saw before, FillAreaWithTiles will set the visible tiles to a range of defined patterns.

The first tilenumber is in A, the width is in X, the height is in Y, and the start XY pos is in z_bc


We use GetVDPScreenPos to select the correct position in the tilemap, then we write our tile number into VRAM to show that tile in the selected position... VRAM auto-increments, so we can just write consecutive tile numbers until we get to the end of the line, once we 've completed a line, we jump back and re-run GetVDPScreenPos

Writing to VRAM messses up the scroll position - so we reset it once we're done... there is a way to avoid this, which we'll learn in a moment!
Calculating the VRAM position is not hard, as the tilemap is 32 wide, we multiply the Y pos by 32, add the X pos and the base of the tilemap ($2000)...

We do the multiplication by bit-shifting.

Once we've calculated the address,  we need to wait for VBLANK - as we can't write to VRAM at any other time

Then we send it the PPUADDR.... high byte then low byte!

The Code above works for an example, but it's useless in games, as we keep having to wait for VBLANK before each write, and reset our scroll afterwards...
We need to get smarter! we're going to store up all those writes, and send them in VBLANK while the screen isn't being drawn...
The result will be no waiting around, and no visual corruption caused by the scroll changing!

Using a buffer to stop the scroll problem!
The PPU messes up our scroll whenever we write, and we can only write in VBLANK, and waiting for it is slow... what we need is to store what we want to write in a buffer, then send all that data during VBLANK...

We'll do this below, we'll store up to 32 changes we want to make to VRAM, each will contain 3 bytes.. a HL address pair and a new value to write


Here is our 'new and improved' GetVDPScreenPos command...

It's mostly the same,  but the last part has changed

We're now using the function 'Get VDPBufferCT'... this will check the buffer isn't full, and return the position that we can write our new data into in the Y register...

The function writes the new destination address into the buffer VDPBuffer, leaving us to write the last one ourselves
The GetVDPBufferCT function will read the buffer position from the zero page entry VDP_CT... if the buffer is full it will wait for VBLANK,

When the buffer is not full, it will return Y pointing to the next entry... but it will temporarily set the buffer size to Zero, so if an interrupt fires, it doesn't process an incomplete queue
Our FillAreaWithTiles has also changed...

We now need to call GetVDPScreenpos for every byte, as we need one address header in our buffer per written byte...

Then we update our buffer... We then write our new byte, and save the new buffer count in zeropage VDP_CT

The Interrupt handler
We define the address of our interrupt handler at the top of the memory map, at $FFFA

We need to point to the address of our interrupt handler, that will handle the Vblank
Here's our Interrupt handler that will run during VBLANK.

First we're starting the Sprite DMA with $4014... don't worry about this - it's for a later lesson!

Next we load in the waiting command count from VDP_CT...

For each waiting command, we write the HL address to $2006, and the new byte value for that address to $2007

We repeat until all the bytes are done


Once all the bytes are written, we zero the buffer count in VDP_CT,

As we've written to VRAM, we need to reset the scroll position as before.

This buffer code works, but it's pretty basic and crappy!
A better one may support RLE - where lots of bytes are all filled with the same value,
This code also wastes a lot of buffer bytes - as each written byte has an address pair... if all the bytes are consecutive, this is very wasteful!

Lesson P7 - Bitmap Functions on the SNES / Super Famicom
The SNES uses 16 color 8x8 tiles... like the NES, we use memory mapped ports to control the PPU... 

We need a bit of set up to get the screen working, but once it's done, things are pretty easy.

BmpTest.asm

PPU Ports for Graphics
The Snes has a large number of ports for Graphics, but we won't need many today! here's the most important ones...you can see the full list here
These are all memory mapped, so we can just write to these addresses in the 64k address space (in 6502 mode)
rw  Address Name Purpose Bits Details
w $2100 INIDISP Screen display x000bbbb x=screen disable (1=disable) bbbb=brightness (15=max)
w $2101 OBSEL OAM size (Sprite) sssnnbbb sss^size nn=name addr bb=base addr
w 2 $2102 OAMADDL/H OAM address aaaaaaaa r000000m a=oam address r=priority m=addr MSB
wd $2104 OAMDATA OAM data ???????? ????????
w $2105 BGMODE Screen mode abcdefff abcd=tile sizes e=pri fff=mode def
w $2107 BG1SC BG1 Tilemap VRAM location xxxxxxab xxx=address ab SC size 00=32x32 01=64x32 10=32x64 11=64x64
w $210B BG12NBA BG1 & BG2 VRAM location aaaabbbb aaa=base addr for BG2 bbb=base addr for BG1
wd $210D BG1HOFS BG1 horizontal scroll mmmmmaaa aaaaaaaa aaa=horiz offset, mmm=Mode 7 option
wd $210E BG1VOFS BG1 vertical scroll

w $2115 VMAIN Video port contro l i000abcd I 1=inc on $2118 or $2139 0=$2119 or $213A� abcd=move size
w 2 $2116-$2117 VMADDL/H Video port address LLLLLLLL HHHHHHHH Memory address (in bytepairs?$0000-$7FFF
w 2 $2118-$2119 VMDATAL/H Video port data LLLLLLLL HHHHHHHH Byte Data
w $2121 CGADD Colour # (or pallete) selection xxxxxxxx x=color (0-255)
wd $2122 CGDATA Colour data -bbbbbgg gggrrrrr Color Data BGR
w $212C TM Main screen designation ---S4321 S=sprites 4-1=enable Bgx

VRAM
What the VRAM addresses do is reconfigurable, we can change the position of the tilemap in RAM, Here's a sample map which we'll be working around in these tutorials ... Note the addresses are in WORDS (2 bytes in each address)... so the 64k memory is accessed by addresses $0000-$7FFF

 Address  Use
$0000  BG1 Tilemap
$1000  Tile Patterns
$4000  Sprite Patterns
$7FFF  Last byte of ram 

Tilemap Data
The Tilemap will typically start from address $0000, each entry contains two bytes

 F   E   D   C   B   A   9   8    
 7   6   5   4   3   2   1   0    

V H L P P P T T
T T T T T T T T
V=vflip H=hflip L=layer (in front of sprites) P=palette T=tile number


Screen INIT
We're going to initilize the screen, first we need to  set the position of our background tilemap... we're using the settings shown above, with BG1 at $0000

we're also setting the tilemap size - we're using a 32x32 tilemap in these examples.

We need to turn on the layer (we're using layer 1), we'll also set the screen brightness!
We're going to set up a basic palette, with blue as the background color, and the first 4 colors set...
To set a color, we write the palette inxex to $2121

Then we write 2 bytes of the color definition to $2122
We need to do something quite important next... when we write data to the ports $2118 and $2119... depending on this setting we'll inc on the High byte, or Low byte being written... we're going to set it up to update on $2118 - the low byte

Now we're going to set up the screen mode, load the font, and finally set up the scroll position

We're going to set the scroll so that the top left of the screen shows the first tile in the tilemap

Finally our screen is set up!

Waiting for Vblank
We can't write to the VRAM while the screen is being drawn, as it will cause problems... so we need to wait for VBLANK...

Vblank is where the screen has been drawn completely, but redraw has not restarted yet....

We can detect this by tesing bit 7 of $4212... we'll be using this command a lot!

While we have to wait for VBLANK on the snes, unlike the NES we don't have to reset the scroll position...

Like the NES, we're going to learn a better way of doing things later in the lesson!

Getting our bitmap on the screen
The code is the same as the NES/PCE

We uise z_hl as our source data, z_bc as the size of the data, and z_de as the destination in VRAM.

Our tiles are 16 color 4bpp... so we'd expect our 8x8 tiles to take address entries... but they only take 16!

You see, on the SNES, each address holds a word - two bytes... so we're going to write our data to $1800... $1000 (the pattern base) + $800 (128x16)

We'll then use DefineTiles to transfer the data to VRAM


Once we've defined the tile patterns, we need to get them to the screen... we load the XY pos to draw to into z_bc and call DefineTiles... this will draw our bitmap onto the screen
You can see our character drawn to the screen!

You can create SNES format tiles with Akusprite Editor... in fact AkuSprite editor can make graphics for EVERY SYSTEM IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!!!

OK, that's a total lie... but it can do every system covered in these tutorials... and that's quite impressive isnt it?

Defining Tiles
As we just saw the DefineTiles function transfers z_bc bytes of data from z_hl in ram to z_de in VRAM

To set up the destination address we use prepareVRAM, this will select the memory address we want to write to, by sending the HL address of the VRAM to write to $2116 and $2117

BUT... before we can write to these ports we need to be sure we're in VBLANK, so we call WaitVBlank, which will pause untill we are!



We can now transfer from z_hl to the PPU

We now write our byte pairs to $2119 and $2118... we've set up our PPU to auto-increment the destination address  whenever we write to $2118... remember each address in VRAM takes 2 bytes (a word)

We loop until we've transferred all the data bytes in z_bc

Showing the tiles to the screen
We're now going to set the tiles in the tilemap to show tile patterns we just defined in a grid!

We're going to use a command 'GetVDPScreenPos' to covert an XY position into a memory location in the tilemap

Once again, we need to wait for VBLANK, before we write our data... .once we're in Vblank, we can write our tile numbers... each takes two bytes, but we'll be writing the top byte as #0 (limiting us to 256 tiles)

We can just keep wriing tiles until we get to the end of the horizontal line, then we recalculate the memory position at the start of the next line.

We repeat until the area is filled.

Waiting for Vblank every time isn't as bad on the SNES as it was on the NES due to the speed of the system, ... but it's not really good enough either - there were some graphical glitches on Grime 6502 on the SNES... so once again we're going to buffer the data, and send it in VBLANK....

But the SNES makes it easier for us, as we have a DMA which will do a big copy for us during VBLANK!

Using DMA to create a buffer... and send it in VBLANK
The code above mostly works, but waiting for vblank before each write slows things down (although not much, as the SNES is super fast)... but it also caused noticable glitches in Grime 6502... what we should do is create a buffer of the tilemap, and copy it with a DMA during the interrupt!

rw   Address Name Purpose Bits Details
w $4200 NMITIMEN Counter enable a0yx000b
w $4201 WRIO Programmable I/O port (out-port)

w $4202 WRMPYA Multiplicand 'A'

w $4203 WRMPYB Multiplier 'B�

w 2 $4204 WRDIVL/H Dividend C

w $4205 WRDIVB Divisor B

w 2 $4207 HTIMEL/H Video H IRQ beam pos/pointer 0000000x xxxxxxxx x: Beam position.
w 2 $4209 VTIMEL/H Video V IRQ beam pos/pointer 0000000y yyyyyyyy y: Beam position.
w $420B MDMAEN DMA enable 76543210
w $420C HDMAEN HDMA enable .

w $420D MEMSEL Cycle speed 0000000x 0=2.68 1=3.58
r $4210 RDNMI NMI x000vvvv x=disable NMI v=version
rw $4211 TIMEUP Video IRQ i0000000 i=irq enabled
rw $4212 HVBJOY Status xy00000a x=vblank state y=hblank state a=joypad ready
r $4213 RDIO Programmable I/O port (in-port)

r 2 $4214 RDDIVL/H Quotient of divide result

r 2 $4216 RDMPYL/H Multiplication or divide result

w $43x0 DMAPX DMA Control vh0cbaaa
w $43x1 BBADX DMA Destination LLLLLLLL H=$21
w 2 $43x2 A1TXL/H Source address

w $43x4 A1BX Source bank address

w 2 $43x5 DASXL/H DMA transfer size & HDMA address

w $43xA NTRLX Number of lines for HDMA transfer cxxxxxxx C=continue (0=yes) x=lines to transfer


We're going to use a buffer this time... this will be held in ram, and cover the entire 2048 bytes of the tilemap from the ram into the VRAM.

Even better, we don't need to do this ourselves! We can use the SNES DMA (Direct Memory Access) to copy the data.

The DMA command is designed to work with the destination registers $2118 and $2119 for VRAM data, but we're going to need to specify the destination address in Vram ($0000) and configure the AutoInc to update on $2119 (we were updating on $2118)


We have to specify the source address as a 24-bit address, because although we're working in 6502 mode, the 65816 is a 24 bit CPU.

At the enbd we start the DMA with port $420B... note we turn off something called 'H-DMA'  (Horizontal DMA)... we don't need it to copy with VBLANK, but it shares the same settings

The DMA will transfer the data... the CPU effectively halts during the transfer, so the job is done before our next command

we then turn the AutoInc back to update on $2118, and return from interrupts with RTI
We need to add pointers to the footer of our ROM file - the CustomNMIHandler is included in the NMI position...


Note there are two versions - one for the 65816 mode, and one for 6502 mode (though our tutorial uses 6502 mode)
We need to change our GetVDPScreenPos... we now caclulate the memory position in the SnesScreenBuffer for the address... and store that address into z_hl
The FillAreaWithTiles function has been changed, it now writes the Tile number into the z_hl address.... this will then be copied into VRAM during the next VBLANK

The SNES code is much easier thanks to the DMA... on the NES we had to buffer just a few changes, and send the changes during the VBLANK...

Having enough RAM and speed to buffer the whole tilemap is a big help... we're still sending the Tile patterns in the same way, waiting for Vblank, but we'll probably only do that a the start of our game/level anyway.

Lesson P8 - Bitmap Functions on the VIC-20
The VIC-20 can't do Bitmaps....

No bitmaps at all!

So why do we have a Bitmap Functions lesson?... well, we can use custom characters like tiles, and do the job that way!

BmpTest.asm



The VIC Character Map ... ASCII is for wimps!
The VIC does NOT use Ascii... as we don't have enough ram for a custom font, we're going to have to learn how to convert the charmap...
if we set the Character memory to $1C00 the Ascii set is offset by 128, and the inverted characters are lost... the result is the @ symbol is now character 128, and 0-127 are the custom characters

By setting register $9005 we can remap the character map... here are the options

$9005 Low Nibble value in bits Type Hex addr Dec Addr
0 0000 ROM $8000 32768
1 0001 ROM $8400 33792
2 0010 ROM $8800 34816
3 0011 ROM $8C00 35840
8 1000 RAM $0000 0
9 1001 N/A xxxx xxxx
A 1010 N/A xxxx xxxx
B 1011 N/A xxxx xxxx
C 1100 RAM $1000 4096
D 1101 RAM $1400 5120
E 1110 RAM $1800 6144
F 1111 RAM $1C00 7168
In these examples we're going to set the Character memory to $1C00 - this puts it just below the Screen... this only allows enough ram for 64 character...
we can however move the screen to $1000 - this gives enough for 128!

Setting Up our Screen...
We're going to need to set up the screen registers... especially if we're using a VIC cartridge (where basic doesn't run to set things up for us)... we do this by copying a bank of settings to $9000-$900

We're going to set up our basic screen, most of this is just the defaults for a 'normal' screen - so we can use this if we're using a ROM cartridge without basic setting things up for us, there are a few 'special' bits though...

We're going to set the screen background to blue ($900F) ... not too much exciting there

The more important one is ($9005)... bits 0-3 set the base of the character memory... we've set it to F... which means the first 128 characters are defined by the ram at $1C000... the second 128 are what WERE the first 128 - the basic character set

Drawing our Bitmap
We're going to get our 48x48 bitmap onscreen by splitting it into 6x6 character blocks, defining it as a set of custom characters (from 0-35)

We then set the screen to those character...

Effectively this is the same as the 'tilemap' procedure, but we're calling them characters for now, because that's what the VIC calls them!
Because it's more like a tilemap than a bitmap, we're going to use the same code as on the PCE/NES etc

We're going to define our source data in zero page z_hl... and the length of that data in z_bc

we'll also define the destination in ram in z_de.... in this case $1C00 - character 0 of the custom characters


Once we've defined the characters, we use 'FillAreaWithTiles'... this puts a 6x6 'grid' of those custom characters onscreen, effectively drawing the chibiko bitmap to screen.


Defining our tiles
Defining our tiles is mega boring... we just copy the source data to the correct location in ram ($1C00)... of course, if our game is in RAM, we can just position the characters in memory at that location with an ORG statement

We're not doing things that way in this example, as it allows our code to run from RAM or ROM



Setting our tiles
Like previous examples, we'll use FillAreaWithTiles...

This will fill the specified area with concecutive character numbers, and allows our bitmap to draw to the screen.

We use the command 'GetVDPScreenPos' which will calculate the memory location of a character from the X,Y position in z_b,z_c

we then just write a number to the address in z_hl - this will be the character in that location,

We repeat the procedure for the rest of the line, then recalcualte the new address for the next line.
We're going to use a 'getVDPScreenPos' command to calculate the memory location from the X,Y character position...

The formula is ScreenBase+Ypos*ScreenWidth+Xpos....

The Screen width is 22, the Screen base is $1E00.... so the formula is:

$1E00+Ypos*22+Xpos....


In this case, we're simulating a 'multiply' by just repeatedly adding 22 Y times - it's not quite as advanced as other cases where we've done bitshifts and adds, but it works well enough.

Lesson P9 - Bitmap Functions on the C64

The C64's bitmap screen memory layout is like the BBC, but it has color attributes like the ZX or a tile system like the NES...

It offers a 2 or 4 color bitmap mode... lets learn how to use them!


Screen Layout on the C64

The screen layout on the C64 is the same as the BBC...
The screen is split up into 8 pixel tall strips... and these are stored in memory Y first... then X

Lets imagine we write bytes to consecutive memory addresses (displayed as 0-641 in the diagram to the right)...
when we write to the first 8 pixels, they go DOWN the screen... but the 9th pixel will go back up to the top of the strip

This will continue until the far right of the screen... then the next byte will be the far left of the next 8 pixel tall strip.

The odd screen layout will make calculating memory addresses tricky later, but it should make sense if you look at the diagram above...

But of course, todays example code should just work fine 'as is' so don't worry about it if you don't understand it!


Graphics Memory and ports
The C64 uses a set of memory mapped registers to control the screen, and various areas of memory are used for the screen bitmap and color data.
Address Description Bits Meaning
$0400-$07E7 Default area of screen memory 
(1000 bytes).
$2000-$3FFF BMP Screen Ram

$D000-$D7FF Char ROM in uppercase/graphics character set 
(2048 bytes, 256 entries)
$D800-$DFFF Char ROM in lowercase/uppercase character set 
(2048 bytes, 256 entries)
$D011 Screen control register #1. LXMSHVVV L=Cur Line X=extended BG M=mode (Txt/Bmp)S=screen on H=height V=Vert scroll
$D016 Screen control register #2 ---MWHHH M=Multicolor W=scr width H=horiz scroll
$D018 Memory setup register. SSSSTTT- T=Text/Bmp screen address S=Screen (color) address
$D020 Border color ----CCCC C=color
$D021 Background color ----CCCC C=color
$D022 Extra background color #1  ----CCCC C=color
$D023 Extra background color #2 ----CCCC C=color
$D024 Extra background color #3 ----CCCC C=color
$D800-$DBE7 Color RAM  ----CCCC C=color (1000 bytes).

Bitmap Graphics
There are two modes for Bitmap graphics on the C64 

Normal mode (2 color) is 320x200... it has 2 colors per 8x8 tile, the "Bitmap data" is typically located between $2000-$3FFF, this is a 1 bpp bitmap, each tile will get its background color from the low nibble of $D020, and it:s foreground color from the low nibble of $D800-$DBE7
Bits Detail Address
0 Text Screen Mem - Low nibble $0400-$07FF ----CCCC
1 Text Screen Mem - High nibble $0400-$07FF CCCC----

Multicolor Mode (4 color) is 160x200 , it has 4 colors per 4x8 tile, but setting those colors is more tricky...  again it uses a bitmap screen at $2000-$3FFF, but is 2bpp... it uses a 160x200, 2 bits for each pixel choose a color from 1 of 4 locations

Bits Detail Address
00 Background Color $D021
01 Text Screen Mem - Low nibble $0400-$07FF ----CCCC
10 Text Screen Mem - High nibble $0400-$07FF CCCC----
11 Color Memory - Low Nibble $D800-$DBFF ----CCCC

The Border Color is defined by $D020

The C64 also has Text modes with redefinable characters - we're not going to be covering them in these tutorials at this time, as the bitmap modes are what we really want for our games!



The C64 bitmap screen defaults to memory address $2000 - the only address we can relocate it to is $0000, but that area is used by the ZeroPage & Stack... which isn't very useful!...
a program running from RAM will start from $0800 so we'll have to make sure we work around the video ram, but if we're using a cartridge, we'll be running from $8000, so we won't have a problem

Setting up the screen
We're going to turn on our screen using $D011, the settings here will enable bitmap mode - which is what we're using in these tutorials.

Now we're going to set or color mode we use $D016 to do this... In these tutorials we'll support either 320x200 2 color mode, or 160x200 4 color mode, depending on whether the Mode2Color symbol is defined

We've defined our screen mode, but we still need to define our memory locations... in bitmap mode only bit 3 has an effect, and we can only map our screen to $2000 or $0000 - as the zero page and stack are at $0000 we'll have to stick to $2000... we'll leave the color ram at $D800.

Finally we'll set a background color, so we can see what we're doing!



Displaying our bitmap
We're going to use the same code for the C64 as the BBC,

We're using zero page addresses z_hl for the source data z_de for the destination... XY is the screen pos...

The bitmap data was created with my AkuSprite editor included with the sources.7z

because 8 consecutive bytes cover blocks of 8 Y-lines, we are calculating a memory address based on XY pos, transferring bitmap data from our bitmap to that memory location.

once we've done a strip, we update our z_hl source, and repeat for the next strip.

This will draw the character to the screen!
The routine will work with 2 or 4 color graphics... but we need to export our bitmap in a different format - AkuSprite Editor can do both!
Have some graphic you want to use as a bitmap or sprite? convert it to C64 screen format with AkuSprite editor (in the sources.7z)

It's free, open source, and supports saving graphics in the native format of ALL the systems in these tutorials!


GetScreenPos

Because the screen memory is bitmapped, whenever we want to get pixels to the screen we just need to calculate the memory position by X,Y co-ordinate, and write data to that position

The screen base is $2000 - and we need to split the bits of Y due to the odd layout odd the screen.

Our formula is as follows:

(X * 8) + (Top5BitsOfY * 40) + (Bottom3BitsOfY) + $2000


As there are bytes of 8 Y-lines between each column, we have to multiply our Xpos by 8


F E D C B A 9 8  
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
8 in binary = 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
We load X into the bottom byte  0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
X X X X X X X X

0 0 0 0 0 X X X
X X X X X 0 0 0
We�ve effectively multiplied X by 8!



















We split out the bottom 3 bits, these are marked as y below... we'll process them later... they are 0 when we do the multiply here
The remaining 5 bits are the ones we need to multiply by 40 are marked Y...


F E D C B A 9 8  
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
40 in binary = 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0
We load Y into the bottom byte
(with the bottom 3 bits (
y) set to 0)
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Y Y Y Y Y y y y
Perform 3x ROL then add to total 0 0 0 0 0 Y Y Y
Y Y y y y 0 0 0
Perform 2x ROL then add to total 0 0 0 Y Y Y Y Y
y y y 0 0 0 0 0
We�ve effectively multiplied Y by 40!


















Once we've calculated our X offset, and our Y offset from the top 5 bits, we need to add the screen offset $2000, and the bottom 3 bits of the Ypos...
we've now calculated the memory address of the screen position in z_hl

The C64 uses 'Color Attributes' to set the 2/4 colors of each square...
We'll take a look at how this works in a later lesson, but if you want to do it now, the basics are here


Lesson P10 - Joystick Reading on the BBC

The BBC Supports up to 2 analog joysticks, with digital fire buttons...  Each Joystick uses 2 analog channels for the X and Y axis - which we'll need to convert to digital values.

Lets learn how we can use them!

JoyTest.asm


Common Data format for Joypad controls used by these tutorials
In the Z80 tutorials we used registers HL for reading the joystick... on the 6502 we'll use Zeropage addresses defined as z_h and z_l... we'll use one bit per button on the joystick/joypad

for each bit, a 1 means the button is up (unpressed)
a 0 means the button is down (pressed)

We'll load player 1's joystick data into z_h... and player 2's into z_l
Bit 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
Meaning Start F3 F2 F1 Rgt Lft Dn Up
Our test program is very simple, all it does is read in the two controllers, and show the value of the z_h and z_l to the screen.

The BBC joysticks are analog, but we'll be treating them as digital, so we'll define a 'deadzone' in which the joystick is considered to be 'centered'... and once it's outside this range it will be considred Up,Down, Left or Right

The BBC Analog Joystick (Joystick)
The Joystick is analog on the BBC... we need to read UD and LR, which will return a value from 0-255....

On the BBC, Top Left of the joystick is 0,0... and Bottom Right is 255,255
X-Y Joystick Axis and returned 8 bit values:

We read in from the ADC, which uses 4 addresses, though we only need 2...

Port R/W Purpose Bits Details
$FEC0 W Data Latch /
Conversation Start
----MFCC M=Mode (0=8 bit 1=10 bit)... F=Flag (usually 0)... CC=Channel (0/1 = joy1 2/3=joy2)
$FEC0 R Status CBMMm-CC C=Conversation complete (1=no)...B=busy... M=top two bits of conversiation... m=mode (8/10 bit)... CC=Channel
$FEC1 R High Data byte DDDDDDDD 8 Bit Data
$FEC2 R Low Data byte DDDD---- extra 4 low  bits of 10/12 bit data

When it comes to reading the Fire buttons, because they are digital, they are separate, we use $FE40 - part of the sound/keyboard controller!

Port Purpose Bits Details
$FE40 Data Port --JJBAAA A=address (0=sound chip, 3=Keyboard) B=new setting for address AAA... J= Joystick Fire
$FE43 Data Direction DDDDDDDD D=Direction (1=Write)

Reading in from the Joysticks
We're going to read in from Joystick 1

First we need to set the Data port to READ... we do this by writing 0 to $FE43

Now we need ro select the Analog Channel to read from, and store it's number in A...  first we use Channel 0 (Left/Right)

We'll use a function called ReadControlsGetData which will convert the data from a 0-255 'analog' value to two bits representing two joypad buttons (LR or UD)... these will be shifted into z_As in the zero page - we'll look at the function in hyst a moment

Once we've done Channel 0 Left and Right... we'll do the same for Channel 1 for Up and Down...

Now we've processed UDLR, the last thing todo is read in from the Joystick button - bit 4 of $FE40
We now do the same for Joystick 2... this time we use Channels 2 and 3, and bit 5 of $FE40 for the fire button...

We only read Joystick 2 in if UseDualJoy is defined... if we only have 1 player, we can save some memory by not reading the second joystick

BeebEm only seems to support one Joystick... which is very annoying! The code here SHOULD work with two though...

Seeing as BeemEm can't use both, and your game may not require two, you can disable Joystick 2 if you don't define UseDualJoy... this will save some memory!


Converting Analog (0-255) to Digital (L/R or U/D)
We need to tell the hardware what channel we want to read... the channel number is in A... and we write this to $FEC0 to select the channel number.

Now we need to wait for the data to be ready, we do this by reading from $FEC0, when the top bit is Zero, our data is ready!
We're going to use a 'deadzone' of 192 - so if the value is <32 we're going to consider it to be Left/Up... and if it's >224 then it's going to be considered  to be Right/Down ...

We use CLC, which sets the Carry to 0 - we'll rotate these into the z_as zeropage entry... so if no direction are pressed 00 will be rotated into z_as - this is inverted by the final EOR 
Depending on whether we're high or low, we'll use SEC to rotate in a 1, or CLC to rotate in a 0  - this is inverted by the final EOR in the main function


 

View Options
Default Dark
Simple (Hide this menu)
Print Mode (white background)

Top Menu
***Main Menu***
Youtube channel
Patreon
Introduction to Assembly (Basics for absolute beginners)
Amazon Affiliate Link
Forum
AkuSprite Editor
ChibiTracker
Dec/Bin/Hex/Oct/Ascii Table

Alt Tech
Archive.org
Bitchute
Odysee
Rumble
DailyMotion
Please note: I wlll upload more content to these alt platforms based on the views they bring in

Z80 Content
***Z80 Tutorial List***
Learn Z80 Assembly (2021)
Learn Z80 Assembly (old)
Hello World
Simple Samples
Advanced Series
Multiplatform Series
Platform Specific Series
ChibiAkumas Series
Grime Z80
Z80 Downloads
Z80 Cheatsheet
Sources.7z
DevTools kit
Z80 Platforms
Amstrad CPC
Elan Enterprise
Gameboy & Gameboy Color
Master System & GameGear
MSX & MSX2
Sam Coupe
TI-83
ZX Spectrum
Spectrum NEXT
Camputers Lynx

6502 Content
***6502 Tutorial List***
Learn 6502 Assembly
Advanced Series
Platform Specific Series
Hello World Series
Simple Samples
Grime 6502
6502 Downloads
6502 Cheatsheet
Sources.7z
DevTools kit
6502 Platforms
Apple IIe
Atari 800 and 5200
Atari Lynx
BBC Micro
Commodore 64
Commodore PET
Commander x16
Super Nintendo (SNES)
Nintendo NES / Famicom
PC Engine (Turbografx-16)
Vic 20

68000 Content
***68000 Tutorial List***
Learn 68000 Assembly
Hello World Series
Platform Specific Series
Simple Samples
Grime 68000
68000 Downloads
68000 Cheatsheet
Sources.7z
DevTools kit
68000 Platforms
Amiga 500
Atari ST
Neo Geo
Sega Genesis / Mega Drive
Sinclair QL
X68000 (Sharp x68k)

8086 Content
Learn 8086 Assembly
Platform Specific Series
Hello World Series
Simple Samples
8086 Downloads
8086 Cheatsheet
Sources.7z
DevTools kit
8086 Platforms
Wonderswan
MsDos

ARM Content
Learn ARM Assembly
Learn ARM Thumb Assembly
Platform Specific Series
Hello World
Simple Samples
ARM Downloads
ARM Cheatsheet
Sources.7z
DevTools kit
ARM Platforms
Gameboy Advance
Nintendo DS
Risc Os

Risc-V Content
Learn Risc-V Assembly
Risc-V Downloads
Risc-V Cheatsheet
Sources.7z
DevTools kit

MIPS Content
Learn Risc-V Assembly
Platform Specific Series
Hello World
Simple Samples
MIPS Downloads
MIPS Cheatsheet
Sources.7z
DevTools kit
MIPS Platforms
Playstation
N64

PDP-11 Content
Learn PDP-11 Assembly
Platform Specific Series
Simple Samples
PDP-11 Downloads
PDP-11 Cheatsheet
Sources.7z
DevTools kit
PDP-11 Platforms
PDP-11
UKNC

TMS9900 Content
Learn TMS9900 Assembly
Platform Specific Series
Hello World
TMS9900 Downloads
TMS9900 Cheatsheet
Sources.7z
DevTools kit
TMS9900 Platforms
Ti 99

6809 Content
Learn 6809 Assembly
Learn 6309 Assembly
Platform Specific Series
Hello World Series
Simple Samples
6809 Downloads
6809/6309 Cheatsheet
Sources.7z
DevTools kit
6809 Platforms
Dragon 32/Tandy Coco
Fujitsu FM7
TRS-80 Coco 3
Vectrex

65816 Content
Learn 65816 Assembly
Hello World
Simple Samples
65816 Downloads
65816 Cheatsheet
Sources.7z
DevTools kit
65816 Platforms
SNES

eZ80 Content
Learn eZ80 Assembly
Platform Specific Series
eZ80 Downloads
eZ80 Cheatsheet
Sources.7z
DevTools kit
eZ80 Platforms
Ti84 PCE

IBM370 Content
Learn IBM370 Assembly
Simple Samples
IBM370 Downloads
IBM370 Cheatsheet
Sources.7z
DevTools kit

Super-H Content
Learn SH2 Assembly
Hello World Series
Simple Samples
SH2 Downloads
SH2 Cheatsheet
Sources.7z
DevTools kit
SH2 Platforms
32x
Saturn

PowerPC Content
Learn PowerPC Assembly
Hello World Series
Simple Samples
PowerPC Downloads
PowerPC Cheatsheet
Sources.7z
DevTools kit
PowerPC Platforms
Gamecube

Work in Progress
ChibiAndroids

Misc bits
Ruby programming









Buy my Assembly programming book
on Amazon in Print or Kindle!


Buy my Assembly programming book



Available worldwide!
Search 'ChibiAkumas' on
your local Amazon website!
Click here for more info!



































































































Buy my Assembly programming book
on Amazon in Print or Kindle!


Buy my Assembly programming book



Available worldwide!
Search 'ChibiAkumas' on
your local Amazon website!
Click here for more info!


























































































Buy my Assembly programming book
on Amazon in Print or Kindle!


Buy my Assembly programming book



Available worldwide!
Search 'ChibiAkumas' on
your local Amazon website!
Click here for more info!