Gigatron Hackers

The proposed state of the repository can be seen in this branch: https://github.com/lb3361/gigatron-rom/tree/pull-request-v6 . The file ROMv6.rom is the proposed ROMv6. This is a minor variation of the current dev rom which therefore fixes all known bugs in ROMv5a and provides good support for RAM &...

The most conservative approach is to reinstate the Pictures application into ROMv6 (instead of Invader). The v6 pull request https://github.com/kervinck/gigatron-rom/pull/249 has been reshuffled to do achieve this. The last comment provides a break down of all the reshuffled commits for review. I be...

If you want to really see what goes into the generated code, you should use option "--frags" of the compiler/linker which tells you where all the pieces of code go in memory. For instance you can easily see whether you still have stdio things in the generated code. For instance, when you a...

Concering the possibilities to save exe space by using Gigatron specific routines: mmind32.gt1 original without Gigatron routines: 11500 bytes mmind32.gt1 using mincprintf, console_read/getkey: 4015 bytes :D So app. 70% reduction! best, Peter Nice! This is a bit of a bind. Being compatible with the...

I changed my CRLF patch to be more robust. Now the preprocessor input routine simply converts all line terminations (CRLF or CR alone) on the fly. This works well with c4.c, handling both the include and the multiline define. Note that I overwrote the previous patch. You have to do $ git fetch --all...

Some findings. Programs fib and queens work but take a lot of time. The recursion is not deep enough to cause problems. One can get faster results by reducing the fib NUMBER definition to 12 or reduce nqueens to n=4. Also variable 'tries' in queens is an int but should be a long because it sometimes...

For heavily recursive programs, you’ll have to target a 64k map (-map=64k) because there is no space for a large stack on a 32k gigatron. This is something to suspect whenever a program compiled but does not run as it should (hangs, crashes, or worse.) #include <stdio.h> should work. Line numbers sh...

The dev rom already contains a faster Mandelbrot program using quertyface's quarter square idea https://forum.gigatron.io/viewtopic.php?p=2632#p2632 . This code is about five times faster than the original Mandelbrot. It steals two screen rows to hold a table of squares and uses the identity 2ab = a...

At67 does not wish to see Invader or any of his applications in ROMv6 (see his own words in the pull request; let's abstain from discussing his decision in this thread). This leaves about 12KB of space for a different application. Possible options: Restore the Pictures application as in ROMv5a. Add ...

Here is a tentative pull-request for a ROMv6, to be scrutinized as needed. Details of each commit discussed in https://github.com/kervinck/gigatron-rom/pull/249 Two commits of this pull request touch code created by at67 such as adding Invader to the app selection. This is a path-breaking program th...