6 ms·
at the time Z80 was popular ('87 ish) there were few/no tools outside of Hisoft Devpac (http://www.secarica.ro/images/zx/genp351.gif http://www.secarica.ro/imag
by mtkd 9y ago
at the time Z80 was popular ('87 ish) there were few/no tools outside of Hisoft Devpac (http://www.secarica.ro/images/zx/genp351.gif http://www.secarica.ro/images/zx/genp351.gif) neither was there any internet / forums etc. to learn how others were solving things - like that bit rotation example
when I found out people were moving the stack pointer register to the screen memory base address and using stack pushes (instead of mov) to move data - to save a clock cycle or two each byte move - it blew my mind - hacks like that would be common knowledge in minutes now
- vardump 9y ago> when I found out people were moving the stack pointer register to the screen memory base address and using stack pushes (instead of mov) to move data - to save a clock cycle or two each byte move ... So the user might occasionally see interrupt stack frame on screen?
- mtkd 9y agomemory is hazy, but using SP to move the memory was fast enough you could blit most (not all) of a screen in one refresh cycle - which is, I think, why games like Uridium (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvULd4zHz8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvULd4zHz8Y) were running the main gameplay in a smaller area also, on that Uridium vid - notice how they are using the standard font but spacing it out vertically (so they could save memory)
- vardump 9y agoAlso no level destruction scene. Intra-level minigame was also completely missing. Leaving those out must have saved some memory too.
- timthorn 9y agoThere were lots of magazines and books though - eg the works of R.A.Penfold.