mirror of
https://github.com/deater/dos33fsprogs.git
synced 2024-11-09 07:09:55 +00:00
682 lines
26 KiB
TeX
682 lines
26 KiB
TeX
\documentclass[twocolumn]{article}
|
|
\usepackage{graphicx}
|
|
\usepackage{url}
|
|
\usepackage{hyperref}
|
|
\usepackage{fancyvrb}
|
|
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
|
|
|
|
\usepackage{hyperref}
|
|
|
|
%\usepackage{graphicx}
|
|
\usepackage{colortbl}
|
|
\usepackage{multirow}
|
|
|
|
\pagestyle{fancy}
|
|
|
|
\fancypagestyle{firststyle}
|
|
{
|
|
\fancyhf{}
|
|
\fancyhead[C]{A version of this document appeared in PoC~\textbar\textbar~GTFO 0x18}
|
|
\fancyfoot{}
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
|
|
%\fancyhead{}
|
|
%\fancyfoot{}
|
|
%\fancyhead[CO,CE]{A version of this document appeared in PoC || GTFO 0x18}
|
|
%\fancyfoot[C] {\thepage}
|
|
%\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
|
|
%\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
\begin{document}
|
|
|
|
\title{Making an 8k Low-resolution Graphics Demo for the Apple II}
|
|
\author{by DEATER, AKA Vincent M. Weaver}
|
|
\date{}
|
|
\maketitle
|
|
|
|
\thispagestyle{firststyle}
|
|
|
|
\section{Why would anyone do this?}
|
|
|
|
While making an inside-joke filled game for my retro system of choice,
|
|
the Apple~II, I needed to create a Final-Fantasy-esque
|
|
flying-over-the-planet sequence.
|
|
I was originally going to fake this, but why fake graphics when you
|
|
can laboriously spend weeks implementing the effect for real?
|
|
It turns out the Apple~II is just barely capable of generating
|
|
the effect in real time.
|
|
|
|
Once I got the code working I realized it would be great as part of a
|
|
graphical demo, so off on that tangent I went.
|
|
This turned out well, despite the fact that all I knew about the demoscene I
|
|
had learned from a few viewings of the Future Crew {\em Second Reality} demo
|
|
combined with dimly remembered Commodore 64 and Amiga usenet flamewars.
|
|
|
|
% from a few decades ago.
|
|
% This started out as some SNES style mode7 pseudo-3d graphics code
|
|
% I came up with while working on my TF7 game. The graphics looked
|
|
% pretty cool, so I started developing a demo around it.
|
|
|
|
%To make thins even better, the code ended up being roughly around 8kB so a
|
|
%lot of time was wasted fitting it under that arbitrary size limitation.
|
|
|
|
While I hope you enjoy the description of the demo and the work that
|
|
went into it, I suspect this whole enterprise is primarily of note
|
|
due to the dearth of demos for the Apple~II platform.
|
|
%So in the end this ends up being impressive mostly because so few people
|
|
%have bothered to write demos for this particular platform.
|
|
If you are truly interested in seeing impressive Apple~II demos,
|
|
I would like to make a shout out to FrenchTouch whose works
|
|
put this one to shame.
|
|
|
|
% The codesize ended up being roughly around 8kB, so I thought I'd
|
|
% make it into an 8k demo. There aren't many out there for the Apple II.
|
|
% and a Mockingboard sound card.
|
|
|
|
% The demo tries to hit the lowest common denominator for Apple II systems,
|
|
% so in theory you could have run this on an Apple II in 1977 if you
|
|
% were rich enough to afford 48k of RAM. The Mockingboard sound wasn't
|
|
% available until 1981, but still this all predates the Commodore 64.
|
|
|
|
%I was writing a game for the Apple II and realized I had come up with
|
|
%some clever Super-Nintendo (SNES) style graphics routines that were just
|
|
%crying to be turned into a demo-scene style demo.
|
|
|
|
%The Apple II was the first computer I had access too, and I grew up in an odd
|
|
%neighborhood where it was all Apples and not a Commodore to be seen.
|
|
%My family long ago got rid of our machine, but I rescued an Apple IIe platinum
|
|
%from the dumpster one day and have dragged it from state to state ever since.
|
|
|
|
%I find 6502 assembly to be oddly therapeutic, and will code in it when other
|
|
%projects become too stressful. Especially when Linux up and hangs on me
|
|
%because firefox tried to do something stupid in javascript. I then pine for
|
|
%the days when you could do something useful in 64k of RAM, and not have your
|
|
%machine fall over because somehow 4GB is not enough.
|
|
|
|
%Background:
|
|
|
|
%The Apple II was the first computer I programmed on, lo many years ago.
|
|
%Mostly in Applesoft BASIC (which ended up being the only Microsoft product
|
|
%I ever liked) but I was starting to get into assembly language about the
|
|
%time my family got a 386 system.
|
|
|
|
%I've revisited over the years, with some 6502 programming to show I could.
|
|
%My skills were not that great, I had one of my size-optimization projects
|
|
%crowd re-optimized. For a while I had a side-gig re-optimizing modern games
|
|
%in BASIC, before getting sidetracked into going full in on 6502 assembly
|
|
%again.
|
|
|
|
%Introduced in 1977.
|
|
%The Apple II runs at 1.XX check Megahertz. 6502, which can easily
|
|
%address 64 kB of RAM (more with bank switching). Shipped with as little
|
|
%as 4kB of RAM. Three registers, (A,X,Y) but a large ``zero page'' which
|
|
%gives you register-like actions on the first 256 bytes of RAM.
|
|
%
|
|
%DOS3.3 operating system with 140k floppies. Amazing programming by Wozniak,
|
|
%allowing all kinds of floppy protection shenanigans (cite 4am, previous
|
|
%article).
|
|
|
|
\section{The Hardware}
|
|
|
|
The Apple~II was introduced in 1977.
|
|
In theory this demo will run on hardware that old, although I do
|
|
not have access to a system of that vintage.
|
|
I like to troll Commodore fans by noting this predates the Commodore 64 by
|
|
five years.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
\vspace{1ex}
|
|
\noindent
|
|
{\bf CPU, RAM and Storage:}
|
|
|
|
The Apple II has a 6502 processor running at roughly 1.023MHz.
|
|
Early models only shipped with 4k of RAM, but later 48k, 64k, and 128k
|
|
systems were common.
|
|
While the demo itself fits in 8k, it decompresses to a larger size and uses
|
|
a full 48k of RAM;
|
|
this would have been very expensive in 1977.
|
|
See Figure~\ref{fig:map} for a diagram of the memory map.
|
|
|
|
Also in 1977 you would probably be loading this from cassette tape.
|
|
It would be another year before Woz's single-sided
|
|
$5\frac{1}{4}$" Disk II came about (eventually offering 140k of
|
|
storage per side with the release of Apple DOS3.3 in 1980).
|
|
|
|
\vspace{1ex}
|
|
\noindent
|
|
{\bf Sound:}
|
|
|
|
The only sound available in a stock Apple II is a bit-banged speaker.
|
|
There was no timer interrupt; if you wanted music you had to cycle-count
|
|
via the CPU to get the waveforms you needed.
|
|
|
|
The demo uses a Mockingboard soundcard which was introduced in 1981.
|
|
This board contains dual AY-3-8910 sound generation chips connected via
|
|
6522 I/O chips.
|
|
Each sound chip provides 3 channels of square waves as well as noise and
|
|
envelope effects.
|
|
|
|
\vspace{1ex}
|
|
\noindent
|
|
{\bf Graphics:}
|
|
|
|
It is hard to imagine now, but the Apple II had nice graphics for its time.
|
|
Compared to later competitors, however, it had some limitations.
|
|
|
|
\begin{center}
|
|
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|}
|
|
\hline
|
|
Hardware Sprites & No \\
|
|
User-defined charset & No \\
|
|
Blanking interrupts & No \\
|
|
Palette selection & No \\
|
|
Linear framebuffer & No \\
|
|
Hardware scrolling & No \\
|
|
Hardware page flip & Yes \\
|
|
\hline
|
|
\end{tabular}
|
|
\end{center}
|
|
|
|
The hi-res graphics mode is a complex mess of NTSC hacks by Woz.
|
|
You get approximately 280x192 resolution, with 6 colors available.
|
|
The colors are NTSC artifacts with limitations
|
|
on which colors can be next to each other (in blocks of 3.5 pixels).
|
|
There is plenty of fringing on edges, and colors change depending on
|
|
whether they are drawn at odd or even locations.
|
|
To add to the madness, the framebuffer is interleaved in a complex way,
|
|
and pixels are drawn least-significant-bit first (all of this to get
|
|
DRAM refresh for free and to shave a few 7400 series logic chips from
|
|
the design).
|
|
You do get two pages of graphics, Page 1 is at
|
|
{\tt \$2000}\footnote{On 6502 systems hexadecimal values are
|
|
traditionally indicated by a dollar sign}
|
|
and Page 2 at {\tt \$4000}.
|
|
Optionally 4 lines of text can be shown at the bottom of the
|
|
screen instead of graphics.
|
|
|
|
The lo-res mode is a bit easier to use.
|
|
It provides 40x48 blocks, reusing the same memory as the 40x24 text mode.
|
|
(As with hi-res you can switch to a 40x40 mode with four lines of
|
|
text displayed at the bottom).
|
|
Fifteen colors are available (there are two greys which are indistinguishable).
|
|
Again the addresses are interleaved in a non-linear fashion.
|
|
Lo-res Page 1 is at {\tt \$400} and Page 2 is at {\tt \$800}.
|
|
|
|
Some amazing effects can be achieved by cycle counting, reading
|
|
the floating bus, and racing the beam while toggling graphics
|
|
modes on the fly.
|
|
Unfortunately for you this demo does not do any of those things
|
|
so you will not be reading about that today.
|
|
|
|
%Later models added double low-res (80x48) and double hi-res (x y in
|
|
%NTSC 15 color) but didn't appear until 198x, and only on later IIe, IIc
|
|
%models.
|
|
|
|
%Apple also came out with the IIgs which arguably was much more advanced
|
|
%and cheaper than the Mac, but Apple cancelled the II line much to the
|
|
%sadness of the users (Apple II forever).
|
|
|
|
|
|
\section{Development Setup}
|
|
|
|
I do all of my coding under Linux, using the nano text editor.
|
|
I use the ca65 assembler from the cc65 project, which I find to be a reasonable
|
|
tool although many ``real'' Apple II programmers look down on it for some
|
|
reason.
|
|
I cross-compile the code, constructing Apple DOS3.3 disk images using
|
|
custom tools I have written.
|
|
I test using emulators:
|
|
AppleWin (run under the wine emulator) is the easiest to use, but
|
|
until recently MESS/MAME had cleaner sound.
|
|
|
|
Once the code appears to work, I put it on a USB stick and transfer
|
|
to actual hardware using a CFFA3000 disk emulator installed in
|
|
the actual Apple II (an Apple IIe platinum edition).
|
|
|
|
%\section{Related Work}
|
|
%
|
|
%See anything by the group FrenchTouch, whose Apple II demos outclass
|
|
%mine by a lot.
|
|
|
|
|
|
% http://www.deater.net/weave/vmwprod/mode7_demo/
|
|
|
|
|
|
\begin{figure}[tb]
|
|
\begin{center}
|
|
\includegraphics[width=2in]{figures/hidden_vmw.png}
|
|
\end{center}
|
|
\caption{VMW logo hidden in the executable data.\label{fig:vmw}}
|
|
\end{figure}
|
|
|
|
\begin{figure}[tb]
|
|
\begin{center}
|
|
\includegraphics[width=\columnwidth]{figures/mode7_demo_title.png}
|
|
\end{center}
|
|
\caption{The title screen.\label{fig:title}}
|
|
\end{figure}
|
|
|
|
\begin{figure}[tb]
|
|
\begin{center}
|
|
\includegraphics[width=\columnwidth]{figures/m7_screen1.png}
|
|
\caption{Bouncing ball on infinite checkerboard.\label{fig:ball}}
|
|
\end{center}
|
|
\end{figure}
|
|
|
|
\begin{figure}[tb]
|
|
\begin{center}
|
|
\includegraphics[width=\columnwidth]{figures/m7_screen4.png}
|
|
\caption{Spaceship flying over an island.\label{fig:tb1}}
|
|
\end{center}
|
|
\end{figure}
|
|
|
|
\begin{figure}[tb]
|
|
\begin{center}
|
|
\includegraphics[width=\columnwidth]{figures/m7_screen3.png}
|
|
\end{center}
|
|
\caption{Spaceship with starfield.\label{fig:stars}}
|
|
\end{figure}
|
|
|
|
\begin{figure}[tb]
|
|
\begin{center}
|
|
\includegraphics[width=\columnwidth]{figures/m7_screen2.png}
|
|
\end{center}
|
|
\caption{Rasterbars, stars, and credits. Stealth Susie was a particularly
|
|
well-traveled guinea pig.
|
|
\label{fig:credits}}
|
|
\end{figure}
|
|
|
|
|
|
\section{The Demo}
|
|
|
|
\subsection{BOOTLOADER}
|
|
|
|
An Applesoft BASIC ``HELLO'' program loads the binary automatically at bootup.
|
|
This does not count towards the executable size, as you could manually BRUN
|
|
the 8k machine-language program if you wanted.
|
|
|
|
To make the loading time slightly more interesting the HELLO program enables
|
|
graphics mode and loads the program to address {\tt \$2000} (hi-res page1).
|
|
This causes the display to filled with the colorful pattern corresponding
|
|
to the compressed image.
|
|
This conveniently fills all 8k of the display RAM, or would have
|
|
if we had POKEd the right soft-switch to turn off
|
|
the bottom 4 lines of text.
|
|
|
|
Upon loading, execution starts at address {\tt \$2000}.
|
|
|
|
\subsection{DECOMPRESSION}
|
|
|
|
The binary is encoded with the LZ4 algorithm.
|
|
We flip to hi-res Page 2 and decompress to this region so the display
|
|
now shows the executable code.
|
|
|
|
The 6502 size-optimized LZ4 decompression code was written by qkumba
|
|
(Peter Ferrie).
|
|
% http://pferrie.host22.com/misc/appleii.htm
|
|
The program and data decompress to around 22k starting at {\tt \$4000}.
|
|
This over-writes parts of DOS3.3, but since we are done with the disk
|
|
this is not an issue.
|
|
|
|
If you look carefully at the upper left corner of the screen during
|
|
decompress you will see my triangular logo, which is supposed to evoke
|
|
my VMW initials (see Figure~\ref{fig:vmw}).
|
|
To do this I had to put the proper bit pattern inside the code
|
|
at the interleaved addresses of {\tt \$4000}, {\tt \$4400}, {\tt \$4800},
|
|
and {\tt \$4C00}.
|
|
The image data at {\tt \$4000} maps to (mostly)
|
|
harmless code so it is left in place and executed.
|
|
Making this work turned out to be more trouble than it was worth, especially
|
|
as the logo is not visible in the youtube capture of the demo (the video
|
|
compression does not handle screens full of seemingly random noise well).
|
|
|
|
The demo was optimized to fit in 8k.
|
|
Optimizing code inside of a compressed image is much more complicated than
|
|
regular size optimization.
|
|
Removing instructions sometimes makes the binary {\em larger} as it no longer
|
|
compresses as well.
|
|
Long runs of values (such as 0 padding) are essentially free.
|
|
This mostly turned into an exercise of guess-and-check until everything fit.
|
|
|
|
|
|
\subsection{TITLE SCREEN}
|
|
|
|
Once decompression is done, execution continues at address {\tt \$4000}.
|
|
We switch to low-res mode for the rest of the demo.
|
|
|
|
\noindent
|
|
{\bf FADE EFFECT}:
|
|
The title screen fades in from black.
|
|
This is a software hack as the Apple II does not have palette support.
|
|
The image is loaded to an off-screen buffer and a lookup table is used to
|
|
copy in the faded versions on the fly.
|
|
|
|
\noindent
|
|
{\bf TITLE GRAPHICS}:
|
|
The title screen is shown in Figure~\ref{fig:title}.
|
|
The image is run-length encoded (RLE) which is
|
|
probably unnecessary in light of it being further LZ4 encoded.
|
|
(The LZ4 compression was a late addition to this endeavor).
|
|
|
|
Why not save some space and just load our demo at {\tt \$400} and negate
|
|
the need
|
|
to copy the image in place?
|
|
Remember the graphics are 40x48 (shared with the text display region).
|
|
It might be easier to think of it as 40x24 characters, with the top / bottom
|
|
4-bits of each ASCII character being interpreted as colors for a half-height
|
|
block.
|
|
If you do the math you will find this takes 960 bytes of space, but the memory
|
|
map reserves 1k for this mode.
|
|
There are ``holes'' in the address range that are not displayed, and
|
|
various pieces of hardware can use these as scratchpad memory.
|
|
This means just overwriting the whole 1k with data might not work out well
|
|
unless you know what you are doing.
|
|
To this end our RLE decompression code skips the holes just to be safe.
|
|
|
|
\noindent
|
|
{\bf SCROLL TEXT}:
|
|
The title screen has scrolling text at the bottom.
|
|
This is nothing fancy, the text is in a buffer off screen and a 40x4
|
|
chunk of RAM is copied in every so many cycles.
|
|
You might notice that there is tearing/jitter in the scrolling even
|
|
though we are double-buffering the graphics.
|
|
Sadly there is not a reliable cross-platform way to get the VBLANK info
|
|
on Apple II machines, especially the older models.
|
|
This is even more noticeable in the recorded video, as the capture card and
|
|
video encoding conspire to make this look worse than things look in person.
|
|
|
|
\subsection{MOCKINGBOARD MUSIC}
|
|
|
|
No demo is complete without some exciting background music.
|
|
I like chiptune music, especially the kind written
|
|
for AY-3-8910 based systems.
|
|
During the long time waiting for my Mockingboard hardware to arrive
|
|
I designed and built a Raspberry Pi chiptune player that uses
|
|
essentially the same hardware.
|
|
This allowed me to build up some expertise with the software/hardware
|
|
interface in advance.
|
|
|
|
The song being played is a stripped down and re-arranged version of
|
|
``Electric Wave'' from CC'00 by EA (Ilya Abrosimov).
|
|
|
|
Most of my sound infrastructure involves YM5 files, a format commonly
|
|
used by ZX Spectrum and Atari ST users.
|
|
The YM file format is just AY-3-8910 register dumps taken at 50Hz.
|
|
To play these back one sets up the sound card to interrupt 50 times a second
|
|
and then writes out the 14 register values from each frame in an interrupt
|
|
handler.
|
|
|
|
% To program the Mockingboard, each AY-3-8910 chip has 14 sound related
|
|
% registers that control the 3 channels. Each AY chip has a dedicated
|
|
% VIA 6522 parallel I/O chip that handles the I/O.
|
|
|
|
Writing out the registers quickly enough is a challenge on the Apple II.
|
|
For each register you have to do a handshake then set both the register
|
|
number and the value.
|
|
It is hard to do this in less than forty 1MHz cycles for each register.
|
|
With complex chiptune files (especially those written on an ST with much
|
|
faster hardware) it is sometimes not possible to get exact playback
|
|
due to the delay.
|
|
Further slowdown happens as you want to write both AY chips (the output
|
|
is stereo, with one AY on the left and one on the right).
|
|
To help with latency on playback we keep track of the last frame written
|
|
and only write to the registers that have changed.
|
|
|
|
% I have a whole suite of code for manipulating YM sound data, in my
|
|
% vmw-meter git repository.
|
|
|
|
Our code detects the Mockingboard at startup; we are lazy and only support
|
|
finding the card in Slot 4 (which is a fairly typically location).
|
|
% The first step for getting this to work is detecting if a Mockingboard is
|
|
%% there. This can be in any slot 1-7 on the Apple II, though typically
|
|
% Slot 4 is standard (in this demo we only check slot 4).
|
|
The board is initialized, and then one of the 6522 timers is set to
|
|
interrupt at 25Hz.
|
|
% (it has to be an on-board timer as the default
|
|
% Apple II has no timers).
|
|
Why 25Hz and not 50Hz? At 50Hz with 14 registers you use 700 bytes/s.
|
|
So a 2 minute song would take 84k of RAM, which is much more than is available.
|
|
Also the Disk II requires hard real-time response involving the full
|
|
CPU to read from disk, so it is not possible to read more data while
|
|
the demo is running.
|
|
To allow the song to fit in memory (without the fancy circular buffer
|
|
decompression routine utilized in my VMW Chiptune music-disk demo) we have
|
|
to reduce the size.
|
|
First the music is changed so it only needs to be updated at 25Hz.
|
|
Then the register data is compressed from 14 bytes to 11 bytes by stripping off
|
|
the envelope effects and packing together fields that have unused bits.
|
|
In the end the sound quality suffered a bit, but we were able to fit an
|
|
acceptably catchy chiptune inside of our 8k payload.
|
|
|
|
\subsection{MODE7 BACKGROUND}
|
|
|
|
``Mode7'' is a Super Nintendo (SNES) graphics mode that takes a tiled
|
|
background and transforms it by rotating and scaling.
|
|
The most common effect squashes the background out to the horizon, giving
|
|
a three-dimensional look.
|
|
The SNES did these transforms in hardware, but our demo must do
|
|
them in software.
|
|
|
|
% As found on Wikipedia, the transform is of the type
|
|
%
|
|
% [x'] = [a b]([x]-[x0])+[x0]
|
|
% [y'] [c d]([y] [y0]) [y0]
|
|
|
|
% http://www.helixsoft.nl/articles/circle/sincos.htm
|
|
|
|
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|
|
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|
|
Our algorithm is based on code by Martijn van Iersel.
|
|
It iterates through each horizontal line on the screen and calculates the color
|
|
to output based on the camera height ({\em spacez}) and {\em angle} as well
|
|
as the current x and y coordinates ({\em cx} and {\em cy}).
|
|
|
|
First the distance {\em d} is calculated based on fixed scale and
|
|
distance-to-horizon factors.
|
|
Instead of a costly division we use a pre-generated lookup table for this.
|
|
\[d = \frac{z \times yscale}{y+horizon}\]
|
|
Next calculate the horizontal scale (distance between points on
|
|
this line):
|
|
\[h = \frac{d}{xscale}\]
|
|
Then calculate delta x and delta y values between each block on the line.
|
|
We use a pre-computed sine/cosine lookup table.
|
|
|
|
\pagebreak
|
|
|
|
\[dx = -sin(angle) \times h\]
|
|
\[dy = cos(angle) \times h\]
|
|
The leftmost position in the tile lookup is calculated:
|
|
\[tilex = cx + (d*cos(angle) - (width/2) * dx\]
|
|
\[tiley = cy + (d*sin(angle) - (width/2) * dy\]
|
|
Then an inner loop happens that adds dx and dy as we lookup the color
|
|
from the tilemap (just a wrap-around array lookup) for each block
|
|
on the line.
|
|
\[color = tilelookup(tilex,tiley)\]
|
|
\[plot (x, y) \]
|
|
\[tilex += dx, tiley+= dy\]
|
|
|
|
\noindent
|
|
{\bf Optimizations:}
|
|
The 6502 processor cannot do floating point, so all of our routines use
|
|
8.8 fixed point math.
|
|
We eliminate all use of division, and convert as much as possible
|
|
to table lookups (which involves limiting the heights and angles a bit).
|
|
We also save some cycles by using self-modifying code,
|
|
most notably hard-coding the height (z) value and modifying the code
|
|
whenever this is changed.
|
|
The code started out only capable of roughly 4.9fps in 40x20 resolution
|
|
and in the end we improved this to 5.7fps in 40x40 resolution.
|
|
Care was taken to optimize the innermost loop, as every cycle saved there
|
|
results in 1280 cycles saved overall.
|
|
|
|
\noindent
|
|
{\bf Fast Multiply:}
|
|
One of the biggest bottlenecks in the mode7 code was the multiply.
|
|
Even our optimized algorithm calls for at least seven
|
|
16bit x 16bit = 32bit multiplies, something that is {\em really} slow on
|
|
the 6502.
|
|
A typical implementation takes around 700 cycles
|
|
for a 8.8 x 8.8 fixed point multiply.
|
|
|
|
% Note, this is Quarter-square multiplication, apparently an ancient algorithm
|
|
% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplication_algorithm#Quarter_square_multiplication
|
|
|
|
We improved this by using the ancient quarter-square
|
|
multiply algorithm, first described for 6502 use by Stephen Judd.
|
|
|
|
This works by noting these factorizations:
|
|
\[(a+b)^{2} = a^{2}+2ab+b^{2}\]
|
|
\[(a-b)^{2}=a^{2}-2ab+b^{2}\]
|
|
If you subtract these you can simplify to
|
|
\[a\times b =\frac{(a+b)^{2}}{4} - \frac{(a-b)^2}{4}\]
|
|
|
|
For 8-bit values if you create a table of squares from 0 to 511
|
|
(all 8-bit a+b and a-b fall in this range) then you can convert a multiply
|
|
into two table lookups and a subtraction.
|
|
This does have the downside of requiring 2kB of lookup tables
|
|
(which can be generated at startup) but it reduces the multiply
|
|
cost to the order of 250 cycles or so.
|
|
|
|
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|
|
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|
|
|
|
\subsection{BALL ON CHECKERBOARD}
|
|
|
|
The first Mode7 scene transpires on an infinite checkerboard.
|
|
A demo would be incomplete without some sort of bouncing geometric solid,
|
|
in this case we have a pink sphere.
|
|
The sphere is represented by 16 sprites that were captured from
|
|
a 20 year old OpenGL game engine.
|
|
Screenshots were taken then reduced to the proper size and color
|
|
limitations.
|
|
The shadows are also just sprites.
|
|
Note that the Apple II has no dedicated sprite hardware, so these
|
|
are drawn completely in software.
|
|
|
|
The clicking noise on bounce is generated by accessing the speaker port
|
|
at address {\tt \$C030}.
|
|
This gives some sound for those viewing the demo without the benefit
|
|
of a Mockingboard.
|
|
|
|
\subsection{TFV SPACESHIP FLYING}
|
|
|
|
This next scene has a spaceship flying over an island.
|
|
The Mode7 graphics code is generic enough that only one copy of the code
|
|
is needed to generate both the checkerboard and island scenes.
|
|
The spaceship, water splash, and shadows are all sprites.
|
|
The path the ship takes is pre-recorded; this is adapted from the
|
|
Talbot Fantasy~7 game engine with the keyboard code replaced by a hard-coded
|
|
script of actions to take.
|
|
|
|
\subsection{STARFIELD}
|
|
|
|
The spaceship now takes to the stars.
|
|
This is typical starfield code, where on each iteration the x and y
|
|
values are changed by
|
|
\[dx=\frac{x}{z}, dy=\frac{y}{z}\]
|
|
In order to get a good frame rate and not clutter the lo-res screen
|
|
only 16 stars are modeled.
|
|
To avoid having to divide, the reciprocal of all possible z values
|
|
are stored in a table, and the fast-multiply routine described
|
|
previously is used.
|
|
|
|
The star positions require random number generation, but there is no
|
|
easy way to quickly get random data on the Apple II.
|
|
Originally we had a 256-byte blob of pre-generated ``random'' values
|
|
included in the code.
|
|
This wasted space, so now instead we just use our code at address
|
|
at \$5000 as if it were a block of random numbers.
|
|
This was arbitrarily chosen, and it is not as random as it could be
|
|
as seen when the ship enters hyperspace and the lower-right quadrant
|
|
is distressingly star-free.
|
|
|
|
A simple state machine controls star speed, ship movement, hyperspace,
|
|
background color (for the blue flash) and the eventual sequence of sprites
|
|
as the ship vanishes into the distance.
|
|
|
|
\subsection{RASTERBARS/CREDITS}
|
|
|
|
Once the ship has departed, it is time to run the credits as the stars
|
|
continue to fly by.
|
|
|
|
The text is written to the bottom four lines of the screen, seemingly
|
|
surrounded by graphics blocks.
|
|
Mixed graphics/text is generally not be possible on the Apple II, although
|
|
with careful cycle counting and mode switching groups such as FrenchTouch
|
|
have achieved this effect.
|
|
What we see in this demo is the use of inverse-mode (inverted color)
|
|
space characters which appear the same as white graphics blocks.
|
|
|
|
The rasterbar effect is not really rasterbars, just a colorful assortment
|
|
of horizontal lines drawn at a location determined with a sine lookup table.
|
|
Horizontal lines can take a surprising amount of time to draw, but these
|
|
were optimized using inlining and a few other tricks.
|
|
|
|
The spinning text is done by just rapidly rotating the output string through
|
|
the ASCII table, with the clicking effect again generated
|
|
by hitting the speaker at address {\tt \$C030}.
|
|
The list of people to thank ended up being the primary limitation to
|
|
fitting in 8kB, as unique text strings do not compress well.
|
|
I apologize to everyone whose moniker got compressed beyond recognition,
|
|
and I am still not totally happy with the centering of the text.
|
|
|
|
\section{Obtaining the Code}
|
|
|
|
More details, disk image, and full source can be found at the website:
|
|
\url{http://www.deater.net/weave/vmwprod/mode7_demo/}
|
|
|
|
%\section{Appendix: Memory Map}
|
|
|
|
|
|
\begin{figure}
|
|
\begin{center}
|
|
\begin{scriptsize}
|
|
\begin{BVerbatim}
|
|
------------- $ffff
|
|
| ROM/IO |
|
|
------------- $c000
|
|
| |
|
|
| Uncompressed|
|
|
| Code/Data |
|
|
| |
|
|
------------- $4000
|
|
| Compressed |
|
|
| Code |
|
|
------------- $2000
|
|
| free |
|
|
------------- $1c00
|
|
| Scroll |
|
|
| Data |
|
|
------------- $1800
|
|
| Multiply |
|
|
| Tables |
|
|
------------- $1000
|
|
| LORES pg 3 |
|
|
------------- $0c00
|
|
| LORES pg 2 |
|
|
------------- $0800
|
|
| LORES pg 1 |
|
|
------------- $0400
|
|
|free/vectors |
|
|
------------- $0200
|
|
| stack |
|
|
------------- $0100
|
|
| zero pg |
|
|
------------- $0000
|
|
\end{BVerbatim}
|
|
\end{scriptsize}
|
|
\end{center}
|
|
\caption{Memory Map (not to scale)\label{fig:map}}
|
|
\end{figure}
|
|
|
|
\appendix
|
|
|
|
\input{dram_notes}
|
|
|
|
|
|
\end{document}
|