Cybernoid/README.md

Cybernoid Music Disk

My motivation was to really push the MAME AY8910 emu code, as the Apple Mockingboard music (Skyfox, Ultima) wasn't really exercising it that hard.

So as a little R&D proj, I thought I'd convert Dave Rogers' Spectrum 128 Cybernoid routine (written in 1988).

Here's a summary of how I did it:

• I got cybernoid.ay from here
• Split it into bin's with AYSplitR
• Disassembled with Inkland's dz80w here
• I wrote 6502 macros to replace the z80 opcodes
• For cybernoid, I hand converted the z80 code to 6502 (using the macros)
• I added a few extension to AppleWin's debugger to help debug the 6502 code (ACME symbol loading & ZP pointer support).

I use Skyfox's MB detection routine.

The Z80 regs are emulated with zero-page memory locations $F0..$F8 The playback routine is very inefficient, as it:

• saves the ZP memory
• restores the Z80 regs
• runs the IRQ handler
• saves the Z80 regs
• restores the ZP memory

This allows playback to work simultaneously with Applesoft & ProDOS. If DOS3.3 doesn't disable IRQs around disk I/O, then it won't work on a real Apple (under DOS3.3), but it'll still work on an emulator :-)

I profiled the IRQ handler and IIRC, it takes about 20% of the frame on average. This is poor, but the code can easily be optimised. Remember this was really just a proof of concept.

After this, I wrote a python script to do the Z80->6502, and quickly converted Cybernoid-II.

Currently playback on real h/w produces noisy renditions of the tunes. I have replaced my AY-register update routine with the slower one used by Skyfox which gives better but not perfect results.

Tom 25 March 2006