About

This site is used to keep family and friends informed of what we’ve been up to recently…  Or what new tech thing I’ve been working on that I thought others might like to know.

12 Responses to About

  1. Malban says:
    April 1, 2017 at 2:47 am

    Hi, I read your recent blogs about the Z80 to 6809 conversion.
    In one of your early posts you mention a (self written) program that transcode Z80 to 6809 assembler.
    Is there any way you might want to share that program?
    Background:
    I am author of vide (vide.malban.de) a tool to help write vectrex games. The Vectrex has a PSG soundchip, much like Spectrum and CPC computers. There are a couple of PSG trackers out there that have players written for the Z80.
    I would like to port a player of these to Vectrex (== 6809 processor). Having the tool you mentioned might mean a shortcut for me.
    Even if you can’t share that – many thanks for the information you provided with your blog.

    Regards
    Malban

    Reply
    • nowhereman999 says:
      April 1, 2017 at 6:43 am

      Hi Malban,

      Sure I’ll share the code, it is a simple C program that takes a z80 disassembly file and converts the instructions to a 6809 version of the same instructions. It’s not perfect and generally you have to hand tweak the code afterwards but I find it very useful since I know 6809 assembly but not z80 and just looking at the z80 code I’m always second guessing what some of the instructions are doing so I end up looking up the z80 instructions.

      You will have to tweak the C program to match the column width of your disassembled z80 code other then that it is ready to go.
      I’ve uploaded the c program http://www.mediafire.com/file/eqlgx1t0vsl0r6n/z80_to_6809_15.c.zip/file

      Have fun,
      Glen

      Reply
  2. Malban says:
    April 1, 2017 at 7:41 am

    Thanks a lot – I will try my first baby steps to convert the player sometimes next week!

    Reply
  3. Malban says:
    April 17, 2017 at 5:01 pm

    Just would like you to know:
    I DID finish the mentioned porting – and my first steps was using your tool. Much manual work was required, but the tool nonetheless was a very good start!
    Thanks. You will be able to view the result sometime in the future when I release a new version of my Vectrex IDE.
    See also: http://vide.malban.de/17th-of-april-arkos-iv-the-finale

    Regards
    Malban

    Reply
    • nowhereman999 says:
      April 17, 2017 at 5:11 pm

      Hi Malban,

      I’m glad my program was helpful for you. Yes transcoding is still a very manual task.

      Cheers,
      Glen

      Reply
  4. landkraken says:
    March 8, 2018 at 12:23 pm

    Wow, just read a few of your posts regarding Color Computer assembly for your Defender project and I’m hooked! I’m still basically beginner level with 6809 Assembly and in order to learn, I challenged myself to convert some CoCo 6809 to Vectrex 6809. Thought this would be a piece of cake, but there seem to be quite a few differences in memory mapping, available built-in ‘functions’, etc. Do you happen to know of a good (freely available) memory map reference for CoCo, specifically Model 1/2? Better yet, have you ever seen a good Vectrex 6809 to CoCo 6809 transcoding reference? Much obliged, keep up the great blogging! I can’t wait to read more!

    Reply
    • nowhereman999 says:
      March 8, 2018 at 2:49 pm

      Hi Landkraken,

      I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the blog postings. Sorry I haven’t seen a transcoding reference from Vectrex to CoCo but as far as documents on the CoCo memory map the best references are the unravelled series of books. Which are a complete commented disassembly of the CoCo ROMs. You can find them on the Color Computer Archive, here is a shortcut to the website with a search for the unravelled series. http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/search?q=unravelled&ww=0&cat=&cs=0

      For the CoCo 1 & 2 you will want the Color-Basic Unravelled and Extended-Basic Unravelled.

      Good luck with your project, it sounds like a cool one.
      Glen

      Reply
  5. Allan Turvey says:
    May 19, 2018 at 3:41 pm

    Hi Glen. Great work. Wonder if you would be interested in helping to convert a popular zx spectrum game engine to the 6809? Dozens of great games have already been written and we already have a z80 and a 6502 version. If you Google ‘arcade game designer zx spectrum’ you can find out more. Might be fun!

    Reply
  6. Mamelito says:
    September 10, 2019 at 1:20 am

    Hi Glen,
    The link to the 6809 code is broken could you post it again?
    Thanks

    Reply

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