The ASM calls

Tutorial by Luca Bordoni
 
This tutorial is oriented to AGD programmers who are already involved in a project; it’s suggested to read & learn the AGD official documentation first.
 
Here, we’ll try to go deep about a hot topic already discussed on the AGD official forum by the author Jonathan Cauldwell. Learning the ASM calls, it means to bring a professional touch to any AGD work, because we’ll be able to include external machine code routines (e.g. generated by other programs), such as graphic and sound effects. That’s the only purpose of the ASM calls employment.
 
 
How an ASM call works in AGD
 
An ASM call (ASM stands for “Assembly”) is none other than an AGD instruction which produces the same effect of the Sinclair Basic command USR: it evokes a routine previously stored in a specified memory address.
 
We should know that the AGD syntax cannot handle values greater than 255… but here, we have to call memory addresses which could reach the value of 64000 and beyond! So, if in Sinclair Basic we simply write “RANDOMIZE USR 50000”, how could we give a similar instruction in AGD?!
 
The answer is: through three ASM commands, each-one handling 8-bit values from 0 to 255. All together, these three commands have exactly the same effect of a RANDOMIZE USR NN instruction in Basic, where NN is the memory address calculated by the second and third ASM.
 
All we have to do is to learn the way this calculation works, and the secret of the ASM calls will be finally clear.
 
 
The three ASM values
 
Let’s assume we have a sound effect we’ve stored at the address 50000 and we want to create the ASM call in our AGD project. The ASM commands must be written in the exact point where we want the sound to be executed (just like it happens for a BEEP command), and the code will be:

 


ASM 205
ASM 80
ASM 195

The explanation is very simple. The first parameter is a fixed value: each 8-bit number is associated to a specific Assembly instruction (as listed in the Appendix A from the Basic Programming manual), and the number 205 returns the “call NN” Assembly instruction. That’s why the first ASM command has always to be set as 205, so it’s the most easy of all ๐Ÿ™‚
 
Now let’s divide the starting address by 256 and jot down the result and the remainder. In our example the calculation will be 50000 รท 256 = 195 with a remainder of 80.
Do these numbers sound familiar? Right, they are the values for our ASM call, which will be used by AGD to build the address 50000.

AGD ASM stands for ‘call NN’ in Assembly or ‘RANDOMIZE USR NN’ in Basic

ASM 205 (1st value, means “call NN” in Assembly)
ASM 80  (2nd value, the division’s remainder from 50000 รท 256)
ASM 195 (3rd value, the division’s integer result from 50000 รท 256)

We’re ready to include our “special effects” in our AGD game! Just don’t miss some important notes in the next chapter.
 
 
Follow progressive steps as good practice
 
If an AGD project with ASM commands is tested, the program will crash, losing all the possible coding progress! That’s why it’s very important to save apart a clean AGD project, without ASM commands (or ASM commands with zero values).
 
1 โ”€ Finish the project. Once the code is complete, it’s possible to check the available memory space and choose the starting memory addresses for the machine code routines we want to integrate (see the memory references chapter below).
 
2 โ”€ Check the available memory and prepare your external routine files. Take note of the memory address to call and make the ASM calculations to use in the AGD project.
 
3 โ”€ Write the ASM commands inside the AGD project in the points where the routines have to be called, but set all the ASM commands to zero. This way, you’ll preserve a backup project which can be still tested: the ASM 0 commands won’t affect the running of the AGD test. Save this project apart.
 
4 โ”€ Open the previously saved project and replace the ASM 0 commands with the previously calculated values. Then save the project as a new file. This project cannot longer be executed (tested) from AGD (unless the ASM values are changed again to zero).
 
Now the code (with the correct ASM calls) is ready to be saved from AGD. From the Basic loader, we’ll have to load the various machine code blocks, that is the final AGD save and the machine code routines.
 
Skilled ZX Spectrum programmers will be able to merge the external routines along with the main AGD game code, in order to load a unique file in the loader.
 
 
MEMORY REFERENCES
 
Considering a finished AGD project for a 48K ZX Spectrum, always take in mind these parameters:
 
Lower memory references:
โ”€ a memory range starting from the address 23552 is reserved to the Basic System Variables; in order to avoid possible crashes, it’s suggested to place the routines not before the address 24600;
โ”€ the lower usable memory starts around the address 24600 till the starting address of the AGD project (-1).
 
Upper memory references:
โ”€ an AGD project cannot exceed the address 64767;
โ”€ the upper free memory starts from the ending address of the AGD project (+1) till 64767.
 
Still about the upper memory, there are some useful informations from the AGD official instructions:
 
At the very top of RAM, the last 768 bytes from 64768 to 65535 are used as a dummy collision map area to distinguish between different types of blocks – walls, ladders, empty space and so on. At the end of the game is an area of 300 bytes used for the particle engine should you decide to employ lasers, vapour trails or explosions. This buffer does not exist in the puzzle or effects engines.
 
 
AGD ASM CALCULATOR
 
Enter an usable memory address (between 24600 and 64767) and get your ASM values on the fly!

205
80
195

GET VALUES