prindle@nadc (05/05/86)
From: prindle@NADC Two copies of the C128 PRG arrived at my local bookstore on Friday. In return for $21.95 +tax, American, I had the honor of taking one of these home. At last, everything you always wanted to know ..., and in excruciating detail. In spite of months of final editing, a few editorial blunders have made it through, but no more than you'd expect from any 740 page technical document. Especially awaited are the intricate details of the 80 Column chip programming (43 pages), Memory Management Unit programming, CP/M disk formats-memory maps-BIOS calls, a C128 mode memory map, and a full set (though hand drawn) of schmatics for the 128. Also included in a number of places is much narrative on the design of the beast and theory of operation (e.g. how the Z80 data bus is interfaced with the 8502 data bus, and how the Z80 is the first to gain control of the system at power up). And where else, tell me, would you ever find a warning that the Datassette and a 1571 should not be plugged in to the C128 at the same time! (no it won't blow up, it's just that the 1571 uses a heretofore unused signal on the serial bus that is shared with the cassette read line on the I/O chip, so there is some possibility of one signal pulling the other up and creating havoc - in C64 mode this works just fine). The table of contents: 1 Introduction 11 BASIC Building Blocks and BASIC 7.0 Encyclopedia 91 One Step Beyond Simple BASIC 109 Commodore 128 Graphics Programming 123 Machine Language 181 How to Enter Machine Language Programs Into the Commodore 128 197 Mixing Machine Language and BASIC 207 The Power Behind Commodore 128 Graphics <some info on the MMU> 265 Sprites 291 Programming the 80-Column (8563) Chip 335 Sound and Music on the Commodore 128 371 Input/Output Guide 401 The Commodore 128 Operating System 477 CP/M 3.0 on the Commodore 128 501 The Commodore 128 and Commodore 64 Memory Maps 555 C128 Hardware Specifications 643 Appendices 644 A - Basic Language Error Messages 648 B - Dos Error Messages 652 C - Connectors/Ports for Peripheral Equipment 658 D - Screen Display Codes (40 col) 660 E - Ascii and CHR$ Codes 663 F - Screen and Color Memory Maps (40 col) 665 G - Derived Trigonometric Functions 666 H - Control and Escape Codes 667 I - BASIC 7.0 Abbreviations 674 J - Disk Command Summary 676 K - Part I - Commodore 128 CP/M 702 K - Part II - Calling CP/M BIOS, 8502 BIOS, and CP/M User Functions 709 K - Part III - The CP/M System Memory Map 721 L - Commodore 128 System Schematics 731 Glossary 739 Index In short, it would seem that you can find all the necessary information to make the machine do anything it *can* do within this volume (I say "seem", because I notice that the section on the RS-232 channel is more or less a copy of the one from the C64 PRG, *again* failing to mention that there is quite a bit more than what is documented required to get the C64, and possibly the C128 mode, RS-232 channel to talk and listen correctly at 1200 baud). Like the C64 PRG, this is obviously "The Bible" for the C128, and is a must for devel- oping any non-trivial application. Judging from the vast array of costly books (many of which are nearly useless) available for the C64, this would seem like the bargain of the century. It is, alas, bound in the infamous plastic binder, but, mainly owing to it's size, this one is less like to munge pages than the C64 PRG. Frank Prindle Prindle@NADC.arpa