I'm looking at a 6502 program that has multiple arrays of bytes (sound effect data corresponding to a particular voice), which are of varying lengths. Currently this involves explicitly iterating through the first (if queued), then the second etc, and each voice has a separate set of variables for volume, delay etc, so the code is set up to use these hard-coded labels.
I'd like to roll this into a loop, indexing into these additional variables and the sound effect data. Indexing into the variables is fairly straightforward, using indexed addressing, but indexing into the sound effect data involves a lot more work, and I'm wondering if I'm missing something in the application of indexed indirect and indirect indexed addressing.
Below is a self-contained example of what I'm doing at the moment. The part I'd like to tighten up, if possible, is the code in LoadFromTable
, ideally with some use of both X
and Y
addressing:
.equ Ptr0, 0x80
.equ Ptr1, 0x81
.org 0xFE00
.org 0x0000
Init:
LDX #0xFF
TXS
Main:
LDX #0x00
LDY #0x00
JSR LoadFromTable
; A should be 'H', 0x48
LDX #0x01
LDY #0x00
JSR LoadFromTable
; A should be 'B', 0x42
LDX #0x02
LDY #0x02
JSR LoadFromTable
; A should be 'A', 0x41
JMP Main
LoadFromTable:
TXA ; Double outer index to account for 16 bit pointers
ASL ; "
TAX ; "
LDA Table,X ; Load the low byte of the array into a pointer
STA Ptr0 ; "
INX ; Load the high byte of the array into the pointer
LDA Table,X ; "
STA Ptr1 ; "
LDA (Ptr0),Y ; Load the character at the inner index into the array
RTS
.org 0x0040
Table:
.word Item0
.word Item1
.word Item2
.org 0x0080
Item0:
.byte 'H', 'E', 'L', 'L', 'O', 0x00
Item1:
.byte 'B', 'O', 'N', 'J', 'O', 'U', 'R', 0x00
Item2:
.byte 'C', 'I', 'A', 'O', 0x00
.org 0x00FA
.word Init
.word Init
.word Init
Taking onboard the split table idea from @NickWestgate and hoisting out the initial pointer calculation as noted by @Michael, I've moved from something like this:
PROCESS_MUSIC:
; ...
BNE MusDoB
MusChanA:
; ...
LDA MUSICA,X
BNE MusCmdToneA
; ...
JMP MusChanA
MusCmdToneA:
; ...
BNE MusNoteA
; ...
MusNoteA:
; ...
LDA MUSICA,X
; ...
MusDoB:
; ...
BNE MusDoDone
MusChanB:
; ...
LDA MUSICB,X
BNE MusCmdToneB
; ...
JMP MusChanB
MusCmdToneB:
; ...
BNE MusNoteB
; ...
MusNoteB:
; ...
MusDoDone:
RTS
to this more generalised subroutine:
PROCESS_MUSIC:
LDX #0x01
PerChannel:
; ...
BNE EndPerChannel
LDA MusicTableL,X
STA tmp0
LDA MusicTableH,X
STA tmp1
MusChan:
; ...
LDA (tmp0),Y
BNE MusCmdTone
; ...
BEQ MusChan
MusCmdTone:
; ...
BNE MusNote
; ...
MusNote:
; ...
LDA (tmp0),Y
; ...
EndPerChannel:
DEX
BPL PerChannel
RTS
with the addition of the following tables:
MusicTableL:
.byte <MUSICA
.byte <MUSICB
MusicTableH:
.byte >MUSICA
.byte >MUSICB
This removes the need for the LoadFromTable
function I'd originally been using, and seems much cleaner overall.
Here are a few ideas. One is passing in an index that's already doubled (i.e. if you can arrange that, or it might already be in the accumulator at some earlier stage).
Another is splitting up the address tables:
LoadFromTable:
LDA TableL,X ; Load the low byte of the array into a pointer
STA Ptr0 ; "
LDA TableH,X ; Load the high byte of the array into the pointer
STA Ptr1 ; "
LDA (Ptr0),Y ; Load the character at the inner index into the array
RTS
TableL:
.byte #<Item0
.byte #<Item1
.byte #<Item2
TableH:
.byte #>Item0
.byte #>Item1
.byte #>Item2
If you can't split up the tables, you can probably still get rid of an INX by doing:
LDA Table,X ; Load the low byte of the array into a pointer
STA Ptr0 ; "
LDA Table+1,X ; Load the high byte of the array into the pointer
STA Ptr1 ; "
Self modifying code might be useful. Living on page zero will be a factor:
LDA Table,X ; Load the low byte of the array into a pointer
STA Load+1 ; "
LDA Table+1,X ; Load the high byte of the array into the pointer
STA Load+2 ; "
Load:
LDA $FFFF,Y ; Load the character at the inner index into the array
You could also see whether adding Y to the pointer as you store it saves any cycles. It might depend on the most common path used (i.e. if it usually doesn't INC Ptr2/Load+2).