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- This file describe tricks and conventions that are used throughout the code and
- might need explanation.
-
- *** Quickies
-
- or a: Equivalent to "cp 0", but results in a shorter opcode.
-
- xor a: sets A to 0 more efficiently than ld a, 0
-
- and 0xbf: Given a letter in the a-z range, changes it to its uppercase value
- if it's already uppercased, then it stays that way.
-
- *** Z flag for results
-
- Z if almost always used as a success indicator for routines. Set for success,
- Reset for failure. "xor a" (destroys A) and "cp a" (preserves A) are used to
- ensure Z is set. To ensure that it is reset, it's a bit more complicated and
- "unsetZ" routine exists for that, although that in certain circumstances,
- "inc a \ dec a" or "or a" can work.
-
- *** Little endian
-
- z80 is little endian in its 16-bit loading operations. For example, "ld hl, (0)"
- will load the contents of memory address 0 in L and memory address 1 in H. This
- little-endianess is followed by Collapse OS in most situations. When it's not,
- it's specified in comments.
-
- This get a bit awkward with regards to 32-bit. There are no "native" z80 32-bit
- operations, so z80 doesn't mandate an alignment. In Collapse OS, 32-bit numbers
- are stored as "big endian pair of little endian 16-bit numbers". For example,
- if "ld dehl, (0)" existed and if the first 4 bytes of memory were 0x01, 0x02,
- 0x03 and 0x04, then DE (being the "high" word) would be 0x0201 and HL would be
- 0x0403.
-
- *** DAA
-
- When it comes to dealing with decimals, the DAA instruction, which look a bit
- obscur, can be very useful. It transforms the result of a previous arithmetic
- operation involving two BCD (binary coded decimal, one digit in high nibble,
- the other digit in low nibble. For example, 0x99 represents 99) into a valid
- BCD. For example, 0x12+0x19=0x2b, but after calling DAA, it will be 0x31.
-
- To clear misunderstanding: this does **not** transform an arbitrary value into
- BCD. For example, "ld a, 0xff \ daa" isn't going to magically give you a binary
- coded 255 (how could it?). This is designed to be ran after an arithmetic
- operation.
-
- A common trick to transform an arbitrary number to BCD is to loop 8 times over
- your bitstream, SLA your bits out of your binary value and then run
- "adc a, a \ daa" over it (with provisions for carries if you expect numbers
- over 99).
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