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collapseos/TRICKS.txt
2019-11-04 16:49:53 -05:00

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This file describe tricks and conventions that are used throughout the code and
might need explanation.
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 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.
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.