Saturday, October 14, 2006

XeO3: Turbo.

I've been looking at turbo loaders today, since we hope to include at least a basic one. We simply don't have space to put one in the code, but since I don't use any RAM below $0800, if we find one or two that sit below there, then we should be able to use them. To this end I've been doing a basic game loader. It install's FLoad, and then loads the game - pretty simple stuff. Its a shame it switches off the screen, but thats a small price to pay I guess. Luca has said that its a little unreliable, but until I find one as small then I'm stuck with it. Since it installs itself prior to the game, any turbo loader should work - or none! So if you have problems, you should be able to skip the loader and load the game directly. Well, thats the plan. If anyone knows of any turbo loader that resides completely under $800, then please point me to it. I'd also like to have a few loaders for different drives if possible - but they must all follow the <$0800 rule.

I've also found my beloved C16 Rom disassembly book which went missing for a while, so I'm pleased to see its return. Its got a great hardware register map, and all the 6502 instructions with timings - all in a neat little book. I bought it back in 86 and it helped me code Freek Out, start Minus4 (all versions!) and now XeO3. I'm also in backup mode just now. Its been a while since I did a proper backup, so Im busy burning a few disks of all the important stuff - although I have copies on my server anyway.

Oh...and to top all this off, my 1581 drive has started whistling when it spins, and suddenly changed from device 8 to 10 for no reason I can figure. Not good.

No comments: