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samcoupestandardh

This project contains a set of standard header files for SAM Coupé Z80 assembly language development. They're meant to make your life easier by defining a bunch of common constants once, so that you don't have to look them up online.

Contents

Files

Following is the list of files included in this repository, and what they're for.

Filename Description
allports.z80 Master include that includes all of the other files. Include this in your program to make your life a little easier.
base.z80 Ports needed by nearly every program (plus a few that didn't make sense to split out into their own file, like MIDI).
colours.z80 Helpful constants for standard color palette values.
comms.z80 Constants used by the SAM Coupé Serial and Printer interfaces.
disk.z80 Constants used by the Disk interfaces and controller chip (VL1772-02).
joystick.z80 Constants used to map joystick entries to keyboard ports, including the ports to read so that you don't have to pull in the whole keyboard if you only want joystick support.
keyboard.z80 Constants used by the keyboard.
lightpen.z80 Lightpen support.
sound.z80 Constants and values used by the SAA-1099 sound chip.

Coding Style

  • We use UPPERCASE names for constants. ITSABITSHOUTY
  • We use _ for separators within constants. SEE_WHAT_I_MEAN?
  • We use lowercase.names: with periods as separators for code labels.
  • We use lowercase for assembly instructions.
  • We use UPPERCASE for assembly directives (EQU, DW, INCLUDE, etc...)

Conventions

_MASK suffix on constants

We use _MASK to indicate a constant that can be anded with a value to isolate it. Usually this is used when a port or register contains multiple different ranges of bits for different functions.

Example:

in a,(BORDER)
and BORDER_COLOR_MASK

_MASK constants are only provided for values which cover 2 or more bits, not for single-bit values.

_BASE suffix on constants

A suffix of _BASE on a constant is used to imply that it's the first in a range of values. To get the other values, you'd add values to the top of it.

Example:

CLUT_BASE: EQU 248
PALETTE_4: EQU CLUT_BASE + (4*256)

_MIN/_MAX suffixes on constants

_MIN implies the lowest value in a range. _MAX implies the highest value in a range.

Example:

OCTAVE_MIN:    EQU 0
OCTAVE_MAX:    EQU 7
AMPLITUDE_MIN: EQU 0
AMPLITUDE_MAX: EQU 15

"Dead" values

Some values are given even though they're going to be ored into something, and they have the value of zero. This is so that you can be explicit about what you're doing, and spell it out.

(This kind of things is an assemble-time operation; it won't cost anything at runtime).

Example:

DISK_CMD_WRITE_SECTOR_MARK_VALID: EQU 0

; ... later ...

ld a,DISK_CMD_WRITE_SECTOR | DISK_CMD_WRITE_SECTOR_MARK_VALID
OUT (DISK_0_CMD),A

Note: Sometimes we'll just define things for symmetry.

_H and _L suffixes for upper/lower parts of values

If a constant ends with _H, it is usually intended to be used as the high register (A8-A15) during IO operations. There will usually be another version of the constant name without the _H suffix for use as a 16-bit register value.

Example:

Use the _H version like this:

ld a,COMMS_MR_H
in a,(COMMS_0_BASE)

... whereas you'd use the version without _H like this:

ld bc,COMMS_0_BASE + COMMS_MR
in a,(c)

Similar to the _H suffix, _L indicates the lower part of a 16-bit value.

Obsolete values

Some things in the SAM Coupé spec have been obsoleted over the years. We won't delete these, but we will mark them as obsolete in the source, and in some cases comment them out as necessary.

Example:

STATUS_LINE_INT:    EQU %00000001
; While this was named the MOUSE interrupt, it's currently used exclusively by
; the SAM Comms Interface for RS232 controller interrupts.
; The MOUSE doesn't use this, and instead has its own counters that are read out
; serially by the user.
STATUS_COMMS_INT:   EQU %00000010
;STATUS_MOUSE_INT:  EQU %00000010 ; OBSOLETE
STATUS_MIDI_IN_INT: EQU %00000100

Read-only, Write-Only, and Read/Write markers

In the documentation you'll find markers that indicate whether a port supports read or write operation. These values can be:

Marker Meaning
[RO] Read Only
[WO] Write Only
[R/W] Read/Write

_MALIGN and _LEFTSHIFT suffixes

The _MALIGN and _LEFTSHIFT suffixes are used to indicate what you have to Multiply a value to ALIGN it to the correct slot (in other words, MALIGN). _LEFTSHIFT shows how many times you must shift a value to the left to align it to the slot indicated by the name to the left of the suffix. (Warning: This could be zero).

These may be more useful in macro-expansions than in code. in code you might be better off understanding the bit alignment and accounting for that yourself via look-up tables, shift instructions, or other methods to map to the correct alignment.

_BIX suffixes

Any value suffixed with _BIX is a bit-index. This is the number of times you have to shift a value, or a value that can be used with BIT n,r, SET n,r and RES n,r instructions.

Example:

ld bc,(RTC_HOURS_10S)
in e,(c)
bit RTC_HOURS_AMPM_BIX,E
jr nz,clock.afternoon

Spelling

We try to use UK English spellings (en-GB) wherever possible, because the SAM Coupé is a British computer.

(That said, we've lived in the US for most of our adult lives now - since 1997 - so some US spellings will creep in).

Copyright and Licensing

The provided source code and documentation are Copyright © 2023 Simon Cooke, and are licensed under the MIT license (see the LICENSE file).