rom4x/notes/ramfactor.txt
mgcaret c4b1070329 Simplify bootable ramdisk detection. Jump to AppleSoft if no boot device.
I discovered that there are more than one ProDOS boot block in the wild, so I
simplified the check for recoverable RAM disk to check card for $01 and then
anything besides $00 and $FF since most uninitialized RAM tends to have one of
those two values.  This is slightly more rigid than the boot code checks for.
I added a jump to AppleSoft if no bootable device is found.  I changed the
message a little bit, too.
I also added notes about the feasibility of using the RamFactor firmware.
2017-01-12 19:40:55 -08:00

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A potential possibility is to replace Apple Slinky firmware with the RamFactor firmware.
The ROM of the RamFactor is 8K in size, but that is not how much we'd need in the IIc.
The layout of the ROM is two banks of 4K, selected by the low bit of $C08F+slot*$10.
Each bank is laid out as follows, with the base at $C000
$C000-$C0FF: Copyright message and fill, not visible in-system.
$C100-$C7FF: Slot firmware, $100 bytes for each slot, same code in both banks
This represents the same code assembled for each slot.
Only the slot the card is in is visible.
$C800-$CFFF: 2K of shared firmware space firmware, different for each bank.
So as we see, without any modifications we need approximately 4K+256 bytes of space to
accomodate the RamFactor code. It is likely we will need to do some bank switching which
tends to add code, but also make some optimizations or drop features, which will remove
code.
There is definitely enough space in the //c firmware for it. Especially if we can drop
the original slinky code, which uses $C400-$C4FF, $C752-$C762 (bank switch, both banks),
and $D800-$DB58 (eff. $DBFF). $C763-$C7FF is already used by ROM 4X.
Features that might be droppable: More than 1MB memory support.
Steps needed:
Produce commented RF source that assembles to a binary match for the latest firmware (1.4).
Port to Apple //c:
- The main issue is that we don't have the ability to run RF code at $C800.
- Bank switch code will need to be in the C400 space, but in the alt bank that
has the //c diagnostics, which will either need to be modified or we will have to
use less efficient bank switching (RTS trick). We can optimize the RTS trick in this
scenario by having an entry point table all on the same page. If we waste a few bytes
in the alt firmware bank we can do something like:
entry: ; expect x = function code
lda table_hibyte
pha
txa
asl
asl ; mult by 4
pha ; "return addr" now a multiple of 4 in jump table
jmp swrts ; switch bank and go
- If the RF code calls any monitor routines we may need to supply them outright
or provide for a bank-switched call.
- We are likely going to need a "cross-bank JSR".
- Caller: Push callee address-1 on stack and JSR to xb_jsr
- xb_jsr: change banks, stack has: SP->caller callee
rework stack so that we have the following return entries
SP->callee swrts caller
sta $ ; into screen holes
stx $
tsx ; SP->caller callee, x->caller callee
lda $103,x ; callee high
pha ; SP->callee[h] caller callee
lda $102,x ; callee low
pha ; SP->callee caller callee
lda $101,x ; caller high
sta $103,x ; SP->callee caller callee[l]+caller[h]
lda $100,x ; caller low
sta $102,x ; SP->callee caller caller
lda #swrts_hi-1
sta $101,x
lda #swrts_lo-1
sta $100,x ; SP->callee swrts caller
lda $ ; from screen holes
ldx $
rts ; pops callee, callee rts pops swrts, swrts pops caller
; above code is ~44 bytes