Awhile back, the Internet led me to a wondrous thing: an online 6809 emulator, complete with compiler, debugger, and text/graphical output!
This website, “designed and coded” by Gwilym Thomas, is amazing. If has a spot where you can enter 6809 assembly source code, then you can compile and run it!
It even has a few sample programs you can select and try out.
While it runs, you see the registers update, as well as a source-level debugger showing what op codes are currently executing. You can set break points, and memory watch points, too.
It also provides text output in the form of the MC6847 VDG chip (used by the CoCo, and a few other systems). The graphics mode is different VDG. While it supports some similar resolutions, it also adds a 16-color display.
The screen memory is mapped to $400 (1024) just like the CoCo, so you can run stuff like this:
start ldx #1024 loop inc ,x+ cmpx #1536 bne loop bra start
If you past that in to the Assembly language input window and then click Assemble source code, you will see the text characters in the Text screen preview window cycling through values. Neat!
The graphics screen starts just past the text screen at $600 (1536). I think that might be where it started on a non-Disk Extended Color BASIC system. (See my article about memory on the CoCo for more details.)
The documentation notes this about the modes:
The graphics screen is a memory-mapped display of 6144 bytes of RAM beginning at address $0600. There are 3 graphics colour modes, in which either 1, 2, or 4 bits represent a single pixel in 2, 4, or 16 colours respectively. Addresses increase left to right, top to bottom as for the text screen.
Columns and rows are zero-base with (0, 0) at the (left, top). Sequences of bits (1, 2, or 4) from high to low represent pixels from left to right. The 2 colour mode has 256 pixels by 192, the 4 colour 128 by 192, each line being 32 bytes. The 16 colour mode has 128 pixels by 96, each line being 64 bytes.
Example: in 4 colour (2 bit) mode pixel (93, 38) would be in byte $0600+(3832)+trunc (93/4), because there are 4 pixels in a byte. The colour value (0..3) would be stored in bits 5 & 4, ie. shifted left ((4-1)2)-((93 mod 4)*2 times).
http://6809.uk/doc/doku.php?id=interactive_6809_emulator
Changing screen modes is NOT done via simulated VDG registers. Instead, it has code that looks like this:
ldd #$0204 ; select 4 colour graphics mode
swi3
I have not been able to find details on what values represent what mode. Also, the documentation says there is keyboard input:
Click the text screen panel then start typing for the emulator to receive keyboard input. Remember that (due to limitations of the emulated hardware) when lower case characters are printed to the screen they will appear in inverse video.
http://6809.uk/doc/doku.php?id=interactive_6809_emulator
I have not figured out how this works, yet.
As far as the 6809 assembler goes, it does not parse all of the extensions that the LWTOOLS’ lwasm assembler supports, so I have been modifying my projects to be compatible with the emulator’s assembler. This has let me, with minor changes for things like ROM calls, test and debug my code in a way that is impossible on actual hardware.
Here is the documentation:
http://6809.uk/doc/doku.php?id=interactive_6809_emulator
If you create anything interesting in it, please let everyone know in the comments.
In an Internet full of so much garbage, it’s wonderful to find such a gem.
Until next time…