Table of Contents
Assembling your own cart ROM image
Cartridge ROM images are burnt or flashed into ROM/flash chips. The file formats of the ROM images vary, but common formats are either raw binary dumps or the special .crt file format.
Most emulators can handle both of these formats, and hardware such as Retro Replay and 1541U with flash ROM can be used if you want to run your cartridge image on the real hardware without having a EPROM burner or other special hardware.
Suitable assemblers for cartridge ROM development
Most assemblers can be used to write your own cartridge ROM, but some are more suitable than others. For example, if you are planning to write a cartridge ROM that uses more than one ROM bank, you might want to use an assembler that, in one way or another, supports writing several segments that have the same start address. DreamAss deserves a special comment here since it has even more features in this direction. In addition to plain support of segments, it also has:
- a pseudo op that returns the bank number of a symbol. this makes it very easy to build tables with bank/address for a cross-bank-call-api
- the assembler can put functions into banks as they fit automatically, so you don't have to worry about memory layout.
Simple cartridge skeleton sources
Here are two small sources from the net that might help you to get up and running with an autostarting cartridge.
CBM80 Autostart Cartridge
Version 1.0
By Alphaworks (?)
CHRGET = $0073 TXTPTR = $7A IERROR = $0300 IMAIN = $0302 IGONE = $0308 GONE = $A7E4 CHKCOM = $AEFD FRMNUM = $AD8A GETADR = $B7F7 CHROUT = $FFD2 BORDER = $D020 SCREEN = $D021 TEXT = $0286 * = $8000 .BYTE $09, $80 ; Cartridge cold-start vector = $8009 .BYTE $25, $80 ; Cartridge warm-start vector = $8025 .BYTE $C3, $C2, $CD, $38, $30 ; CBM8O - Autostart key ; KERNAL RESET ROUTINE STX $D016 ; Turn on VIC for PAL / NTSC check JSR $FDA3 ; IOINIT - Init CIA chips JSR $FD50 ; RANTAM - Clear/test system RAM JSR $FD15 ; RESTOR - Init KERNAL RAM vectors JSR $FF5B ; CINT - Init VIC and screen editor CLI ; Re-enable IRQ interrupts ; BASIC RESET Routine JSR $E453 ; Init BASIC RAM vectors JSR $E3BF ; Main BASIC RAM Init routine JSR $E422 ; Power-up message / NEW command LDX #$FB TXS ; Reduce stack pointer for BASIC ; START YOUR PROGRAM HERE ($8025) LDA #4 ; CHANGE BORDER COLOUR TO STA BORDER ; BLACK LDA #147 ; PRINT CHR$(147) TO CLEAR JSR CHROUT ; SCREEN RTS
Copy a program from ROM to RAM and autostart it
By Enthusi
Taken from this CSDb discussion thread.
This code is used to create a .crt ROM image which includes a copy of an executable program. When started, the code in the ROM copies the program to C64 RAM (from $0801) and executes it. The cart-reset-routine copies the “launcher” to $0400, executes it and somewhere near $0430 it says JMP $080b.
These CRTs will run in VICE and MMCR Bios 0.55 - source is in XA syntax
;this is for a 8KB cart!! *=$0000 .asc "C64 CARTRIDGE " .byte $00,$00 ;header length .byte $00,$40 ;header length .word $0001 ;version .word $0000 ;crt type .byte $00 ;exrom line .byte $01 ;game line .byte $00,$00,$00,$00,$00,$00 ;unused .asc "CRT TITLE" name .dsb ($0040-name),0 ;chip packets .asc "CHIP" .byte $00,$00,$20,$10 ;chip length .byte $00,$00 ;chip type .byte $00,$00 ;bank .byte $80,$00 ;adress .byte $20,$00 ;length ;ROM part ;--------------------------------- *=$8000 .word launcher .word launcher .byte $c3 ;c .byte $c2 ;b .byte $cd ;m .byte $38 ;8 .byte $30 ;0 launcher sei stx $d016 jsr $fda3 ;prepare irq jsr $fd50 ;init memory jsr $fd15 ;init i/o jsr $ff5b ;init video cli ;jsr $e453 ;load basic vectors ;jsr $e3bf ;init basic ram ;jsr $a68e ;jmp $a7ae ;ldx #$fb ; txs ;--------------------------------- start_all lda $d011 and #%11101111 sta $d011 ldx #$00 sa1 lda movecode1,x sta $0400,x inx bne sa1 jmp $0400 ;------------------------------ movecode1 *=$0400 movecode2 basic_move ldx #$00 bm1 lda main_file_start,x bm2 sta $0801,x inx bne bm1 inc bm1+2 inc bm2+2 lda bm1+2 cmp #$c0 bne basic_move jmp $080b movecode3 ;--------------------------------- *=movecode1+(movecode3-movecode2) main_file_start .bin 2,0,"game.bin" main_file_end .dsb ($a000-main_file_end),0
CBM80 Autostart Cartridge developed with DreamAss
By Csanyi Pal
This cart rom image is just for experimenting how can one assemble her/his own cart rom image with DreamAss. It can be run in VICE x64sc emulator.
;HOW TO COMPILE ;dreamass -o TestMyCart.crt TestMyCart.src ;HOW TO VERIFY CRT IMAGE ;cartconv -f TestMyCart.crt ;HOW TO RUN in VICE's x64sc emulator ;x64sc -cartcrt TestMyCart.crt ;DreamAss documentation is after unpacking and running make in dreamass-master directorty ;and after that running make in dreamass-master/docs directory is here: ;file://dreamass-master/docs/dreamass.html#Outfiles #outfile @, sort, $00, "crtheader", "chip1header", "romsegment" ;Calculation of the start address that must be given. ;StartAddress=StartAddressOfCartROM-CRTheaderLenght-ChipHeaderLenght ;StartAddress=$(8000-40-10)=$7fb0 ;Definition of segments #segdef "crtheader",$7fb0-$7ff0,fillup,force ;CRT header #segdef "chip1header",$7ff0-$8000,fillup ;CHIP header #segdef "romsegment",$8000-$a000,fillup,force ;ROM .segment "crtheader" ;CRT header .pet "c64 cartridge " ;16 byte long .byte $00,$00 ;File header length ($00000040, in high/low format, .byte $00,$40 ;calculated from offset $0000). Default value is $40 = 64 .word $0001 ;crt version 1.0 = {$01, $00} (high/low, presently 01.00) .word $0000 ;hardver type ($0000, high/low) .byte $00 ;Signal of the ExROM Line (for Memory configuration) ;Cartridge port EXROM line status ; 0 - inactive ; 1 - active .byte $00 ;Signal of the Game Line (for Memory configuration) ;Cartridge port GAME line status ; 0 - inactive ; 1 - active .byte $00,$00,$00,$00,$00,$00 ;Reserved for future use .pet "test my cartridge 08kb" ;32 byte long, uppercase, padded with null characters) ;name of the cartridge (Null-terminated String) ;DreamAss fill up automatically the remained bytes, ;thanks to fillup,force options in ; #segdef "crtheader",$7fb0-$7ff0,fillup,force ;End of CRT header. ;0040-xxxx Cartridge contents (called CHIP PACKETS, as there can be more than one per CRT file). .segment "chip1header" ;CHIP header segment .pet "chip" ;$40-$43 Contained ROM signature "CHIP" ;(note there can be more than one image in a .CRT file) .byte $00,$00,$20,$10 ;$44-$47 Total packet length ($00002010, ROM image size and ;CHIP header combined) (high/low format) ;here the value is $2000 +$10 that is 8192+16=8208 byte .byte $00,$00 ;$48-$49 chip type 0, that is ROM ; 0 - ROM ; 1 - RAM, no ROM data ; 2 - Flash ROM .byte $00,$00 ;$4A-$4B bank value of 0 ;Bank number ($0000 - normal cartridge) .byte $80,$00 ;$4C-$4D $8000 that is 32768 is Starting load address (high/low format) .byte $20,$00 ;$4E-$4F ROM image size in bytes, here $2000 that is 8192 byte = 8KiB ;(high/low format, typically $2000 or $4000) ;0050-xxxx - ROM data ;ROM part follows... chrget = $0073 txtptr = $007a ierror = $0300 imain = $0302 igone = $0308 gone = $a7e4 chkcom = $aefd frmnum = $ad8a getadr = $b7f7 chrout = $ffd2 border = $d020 screen = $d021 text = $0286 .segment "romsegment" ;ROM segment .word coldstart ;coldstart vector .word warmstart ;warmstart vector .byte $C3,$C2,$CD,$38,$30 ;"CBM8O". ;Needed to autostart Cartridge. coldstart: ; KERNAL RESET ROUTINE stx $d016 ; Turn on VIC for PAL / NTSC check jsr $fda3 ; IOINIT - Init CIA chips jsr $fd50 ; RANTAM - Clear/test system RAM jsr $fd15 ; RESTOR - Init KERNAL RAM vectors jsr $ff5b ; CINT - Init VIC and screen editor cli ; Re-enable IRQ interrupts warmstart: ; Write here your code! lda #$fe ;C64 default border color sta border ;screen border lda #$f6 ;C64 default screen color sta screen ;screen jsr write0 ;write text to screen stophere: jmp stophere ;Short cycle, to stop here program. ;write text to screen write0: ldx #0 write1: lda txt1,x beq done1 jsr $ffd2 inx bne write1 done1: rts txt1: .pet 8,14,13," *** Pal Csanyi's Cartridge ***",13," is 8kb of size",13," Informations about the Cartridge",13,0