Topic: Apple II
Apple II 1-Bit
$C030
Re: Apple II
- utz
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Re: Apple II
From our forum member krüe: http://krue.net/stitch/ 
Seriously, I think the Apple II has one of the worst 1-bit setups. Not being able to "set" the 1-bit state directly is a major hassle.
... hmm, one day when I have too much free time I might learn 65xx asm 
Re: Apple II
Radio-86RK should be even worse. It controls the speaker with DI and EI commands, and has DMA bursts constantly running in background to refresh screen and memory (so tape routines only works while display is disabled).
I guess Apple II's inability to set speaker state directly renders Phaser-like engines undoable, but on the other hand Apple II coders often use PWM techniques to get like ~8 'volume' levels, in Fuzz Click fashion.
6502 assembly is actually super easy, the trick is to switch the thinking patterns after x86/8080/Z80, i.e. from register-oriented to memory-oriented programming.
- utz
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Re: Apple II
Radio-86RK does indeed sound scary.
Another thing that used to give me a good headache are those devices that output a fixed (preferably high-pitched) frequency (Channel F, or the Sharp Pocket thingies, for example). Thankfully, Zilog's squeeker algo is great at overriding those. Might be also a good candidate for Radio-86RK, since it doesn't seem to require exact timing.
I actually did write a sound routine for the VIC20 once. Couldn't find anything on how to create a 16-bit pointer, so I wrote some really ugly self-modifying code... then later, I looked it up and realized that I'd written it exactly like it's supposed to be done. I have to admit that kind of shaped my experience with MOS products Aside from VIC20, one machine I really want to tackle though is the Atari VCS, so I guess I'll have to wrap my head around 6502 (or 6507, in this case) at some point.
Re: Apple II
The only 'proper' way to make 16-bit pointer on 6502 is just LDA/STA (ZP),y. Self-modifying code is another option, but that's only for systems with enough RAM for code.
Thought it may be actually useful to sketch out a simple 6502 sound routine. This is Music Box like, two 8-bit channels, interleaving, written in the dumbest way. Tested on NES:
;all referenced vars are 8-bit, located in zero page
lda #0
sta <CH1_CNT
sta <CH2_CNT
sta <CH1_OUT
sta <CH2_OUT
lda #55
sta <CH1_DIV
lda #150
sta <CH2_DIV
sound_loop:
dec <CH1_CNT ;5 decrement channel 1 counter
bne no_inc_1 ;2/3 if no overflow, skip through steady timing code
lda <CH1_DIV ;2 load new counter value
sta <CH1_CNT ;2 store to the counter
inc <CH1_OUT ;5 invert channel output polarity
jmp skip_1 ;3 continue
no_inc_1:
nop ;2 timing
nop ;2
nop ;2
nop ;2
jmp skip_1 ;3
skip_1:
lda <CH1_OUT ;2 kind of sbc a,a on carry
ror a ;2
lda <CH1_OUT ;2
sbc <CH1_OUT ;2 here we get 0 or 255 depending from the original least significant bit, slow, but universal
sta DMC_RAW ;4 dump it directly to DAC, other systems may need an AND here
dec <CH2_CNT ;5 the same for second channel
bne no_inc_2 ;2/3
lda <CH2_DIV ;2
sta <CH2_CNT ;2
inc <CH2_OUT ;5
jmp skip_2 ;3
no_inc_2:
nop ;2 timing
nop ;2
nop ;2
nop ;2
jmp skip_2 ;3
skip_2:
lda <CH2_OUT ;2 kind of sbc a,a on carry
ror a ;2
lda <CH2_OUT ;2
sbc <CH2_OUT ;2
sta DMC_RAW ;4
jmp sound_loop ;3=67tDon't forget about the nasty 6502 quirk, if any branch (except BVS) is crossing 256-byte page, it adds an extra cycle. So it is better to align starting address and keep eye on it. Not that 1 extra cycle will matter a lot, but if there is complex branch logic, it will make difference.
- utz
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Re: Apple II
Thanks Shiru, that'll come in handy some time.