collapseos/recipes/sms
Virgil Dupras 2a55bfd375 stdio: remove a layer of indirection in GetC/PutC
We use zasm's ability to use labels in .equ directive.

We didn't do it before because for a while, we were in between scas
and zasm (scas was used in automated tests) so we needed to use the
lowest common denominator: zasm doesn't have macros and scas can't
use labels in .equ directives.

This forced us to add this layer of indirection. But now that we are
completely cut from scas' dependency, we can use this nice zasm's
ability.
2019-11-04 09:55:12 -05:00
..
kbd stdio: remove a layer of indirection in GetC/PutC 2019-11-04 09:55:12 -05:00
romasm stdio: remove a layer of indirection in GetC/PutC 2019-11-04 09:55:12 -05:00
.gitignore recipes/sms: New section for Sega Master System 2019-07-01 11:05:25 -04:00
glue.asm stdio: remove a layer of indirection in GetC/PutC 2019-11-04 09:55:12 -05:00
Makefile recipes/sms: New section for Sega Master System 2019-07-01 11:05:25 -04:00
README.md recipes/sms/romasm: ed and zasm, fully functional! 2019-07-25 14:24:18 -04:00

Sega Master System

The Sega Master System was a popular gaming console running on z80. It has a simple, solid design and, most interestingly of all, its even more popular successor, the Megadrive (Genesis) had a z80 system for compatibility!

This makes this platform very scavenge-friendly and worth working on.

SMS Power is an awesome technical resource to develop for this platform and this is where most of my information comes from.

This platform is tight on RAM. It has 8k of it. However, if you have extra RAM, you can put it on your cartridge.

This recipe is for installing a minimal Collapse OS system on the SMS. There are other recipes related to the SMS:

Gathering parts

  • zasm
  • A Sega Master System or a MegaDrive (Genesis). (I have only tested on a MegaDrive so far)
  • A Megadrive D-pad controller.
  • A way to get an arbitrary ROM to run on the SMS. Either through a writable ROM card or an Everdrive.

Build the ROM

Running make will produce a os.sms ROM that can be put as is on a SD card to the everdrive or flashed as is on a writable ROM cart. Then, just run the thing!

Usage

On boot, you will get a regular Collapse OS shell. See the rest of the documentation for shell usage instructions.

The particularity here is that, unlike with the RC2014, we don't access Collapse OS through a serial link. Our input is a D-Pad and our output is a TV. The screen is 32x28 characters. A bit tight, but usable.

D-Pad is used as follow:

  • There's always an active cursor. On boot, it shows "a".
  • Up/Down increase/decrease the value of the cursor.
  • Left/Right does the same, by increments of 5.
  • A button is backspace.
  • B button skips cursor to next "class" (number, lowcase, upcase, symbols).
  • C button "enters" cursor character and advance the cursor by one.
  • Start button is like pressing Return.

Of course, that's not a fun way to enter text, but using the D-Pad is the easiest way to get started which doesn't require soldering. Your next step after that would be to build a PS/2 keyboard adapter!