★ LITTÉRATURE ★ ENGLISH ★ ADVANCED Z80 MACHINE CODE PROGRAMMING ★ |
| Advanced Z80 Machine Code Programming | Littérature English |
This book is intended to fill a sorely missing gap in available microcomputer literature. Rather than deal with the elementary concepts of Z80 architecture, this book examines advanced, serious and practical machine language programming. Basic texts deal with the 'spelling' and ‘grammar' of Z80, this book is about the ‘writing' process. Generally speaking, ft has been designed to cater for three types of programmers; beginners who want to supplement their own basic concepts book, and who want to tackle the more complex aspects of the instruction set in greater detail; novice or intermediate programmers who now want to develop software in a professional manner; and, I also hope, experts who wish to view new methods, programming styles and algorithms, to add to their library of programming knowledge. The programs selected for the inclusion in this book were done so to encourage both professionalism and commercialism. Whether you are serious or not about marketing what you have written is unimportant, but you must be serious about getting the job done. The first part of this book reviews the complex aspects of the Z80; flags, miscellaneous instruction code, logical operations and other bit manipulations, with a view to their practical application. Moreover, the first chapter looks at the problems of program writing in detail, from runcharting and flowcharting, to developing a practical working plan. Selecting appropriate working tools such as monitors and editor/assemblers are also discussed. The principles of modular programming, a method of coding that reduces software development to a comprehensible level is examined. Besides discussing programming style in general, the first part of this book also looks at writing smaller and faster programs, and debugging describes the most common programming errors associated with the Z80, popular misconceptions, and then check-lists to help you approach the debugging process in a much more efficient manner. The third chapter deals with communicating, whether this is displaying a string on the VDU, or reading a decimal or hexadecimal string from the keyboard. The core of the book looks at popular programming applications. Starting with the basics of organising information, generating arrays and tables, block moving, shifting and erasing, string manipulations, data compression and command tables, it quickly moves on to advanced applications like word and sentence decoding, finishing the chapter with a detailed analysis of an ‘adventure game'. Chapter five is dedicated solely to game programming, and considers random number generating, maze generating both in two and three dimensions, animation, arcade games, and various other essential programming techniques. Chapter six turns to more ‘serious' applications. The complexities of sorting strings and numeric data are taken down to a more understandable level, and bubble sorting, Shell sorting, and Quick sorting algorithms are reviewed. Binary and block searching, and the concepts of database management are also covered. Finally the chapter concludes with an examination of a pseudo-computer language, to help you develop your own high level languages. Chapter seven is about machine language editing, break-pointing, single-stepping, and disassembling. These various processes are scrutinised in detail. Chapter eight explains how to generate speech synthesis and sound effects. The complete set of ‘undocumented' Z80 instructions, which includes four more general purpose 8-bit registers, and special shifts, are finally documented. The chapter finishes by explaining how to write a program for commercial publication, what is expected from such software, how to document it for submission, and what returns you are expected to receive. The appendix section of the book includes a glossary of machine language terms, hexadecimal to decimal conversion, flag condition and instruction code summaries, and a complete listing of the Z80 instruction set. I hope the programs included in this book will help to rid yourself of the question ‘how do I write?' and let you concentrate on the most important question of all: Now, what do I want to write? William Nitschke, CPCRULEZ
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