6502 ROM Routines

ROM Routines

In this blog post, I will be attempting to recreate the below code using ROM routines with instructions sets designed for 6502. These instruction sets will include modifying Accumulator, Y, and X registers to display text on screen. Also with instruction sets, there are ROM Routines.

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The first thing I want to discuss is the built-in subroutines available for 6502 chips. There are 5 ROM subroutines SCINIT, CHRIN, CHROUT, SCREEN, and PLOT.
1) SCINIT – used to initialize or clear the screen.
2) CHRIN – accepts user input one character at a time and returns A
3) CHROUT – outputs one character to screen from A at the current cursor position
4) SCREEN – returns screen size in the x and y register
5) PLOT – used to get or set cursor position

Output Message – CHROUT

We all know how to output a message in 6502, but how about using ROM routines to accomplish this with just a few lines of instructions.

; ROM routines
define		SCINIT		$ff81 ; initialize/clear screen
define		CHRIN		$ffcf ; input character from keyboard
define		CHROUT		$ffd2 ; output character to screen
define		SCREEN		$ffed ; get screen size
define		PLOT		$fff0 ; get/set cursor coordinates

          jsr SCINIT
          ldy #$00

char:     lda message,y
          beq done
          jsr CHROUT
          iny
          bne char
done:
brk

message:
dcb "Y","o","u","r",32,"o","r","d","e","r",32,"w","i","l","l",32
dcb "b","e",32,"d","e","l","i","v","e","r","e","d",32,"t","o",":",$0d,$0d

Here we have the accumulator register being loaded with the message from our dcb. every iny will cycle through the message in 32 bit sizes until it reaches 0. Each time the accumulator register is loaded with a character from our dcb, it is then outputted to screen using CHROUT one character at a time. This will continue until the accumulator hits 0 and triggers the beq Z (zero flag).

Setting Cursor Position – PLOT

To set a cursor position on the text screen on the 6502 emulator, we will be using PLOT.

; ROM routines
define		SCINIT		$ff81 ; initialize/clear screen
define		CHRIN		$ffcf ; input character from keyboard
define		CHROUT		$ffd2 ; output character to screen
define		SCREEN		$ffed ; get screen size
define		PLOT		$fff0 ; get/set cursor coordinates

        jsr SCINIT
	clc
	ldx #$03
	ldy #$01
	jsr PLOT
	lda #$41
	jsr CHROUT   
	
	clc
	ldx #$02
	ldy #$02
	jsr PLOT
	lda #$42
	jsr CHROUT 
	brk

With the above lines of code, I am able to determine where I want my cursor to begin after I output my message.

Character Input from Keyboard – CHRIN

In 6502, we can get character from input and display it onto the screen. It is simple with a few instructions to store the last ASCII keyword pressed into a register and output it onto text display with sta $ff00 (first page, first pixel). The following without ROM will allow for input of a string. With ROM we were able to replicate the exact instructions for taking input from keyboard and displaying on text display

define      SCINIT      $ff81 ; initialize/clear screen
define      CHRIN       $ffcf ; input character from keyboard
define      CHROUT      $ffd2 ; output character to screen
define      SCREEN      $ffed ; get screen size
define      PLOT        $fff0 ; get/set cursor coordinates

input:
	jsr CHRIN
	bne display
	jmp idle

display:
	jsr CHROUT
	iny
	jmp input

idle:   
        lda $f000,y
        eor #$80
        sta $f000,y
	lda $ff
	jmp input

We were able to integrate CHRIN routine where if character input is not equal to zero or negative, then it would jump to idle. Idle is used to show where the current position on the text display is. Once a character is entered, CHRIN would take that character, return it to accumulator and branch to display. Display will then output that character from the accumulator onto the text display.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we were able to let the ROM routines handle instructions such as loading and storing to accumulator because the CHRIN will return a character to accumulator while CHROUT will output a character stored in the accumulator.