Attach 16k Cartridge @ $6000

[buzbard]

I recently filed a ticket at sourceforge to have a couple bugs fixed in Vice (xvic.exe).

The first was that attaching a cartridge rom using the following menu items:

Code: Select all

4/8/16KB image at $2000...
4/8/16KB image at $4000...
4/8/16KB image at $6000...

did not work correctly if the 2-byte load address was missing from the file, the rom always attached at $A000. That's been fixed in the latest nightly build.

The second was that if the rom file was 16k in size, it didn't attach anywhere. That's also been fixed.

I also asked about the last menu item above: Is it possible to attach a 16k image at $6000?

I'm pretty sure it's not since character rom resides at $8000, but, I thought I'd ask here to just see what everyone else thought.

So, is it possible, and do any exist?

[Mike]

If it's a raw *.bin file (i.e., without load address), I'd expect such a 16K file to be attached to BLK3 and BLK5. That's quite a common case, and would spare us to work with split files for $6000 and $A000.

However, in WinVICE 2.4.2 x86 r27141, which I have currently installed, a 16K cart attach to $6000 with a raw *.bin only loaded the first half to $A000 (and seemingly ignored the rest), and with a prepended start address of $6000 it didn't do anything (just zeroes in BLK3 and BLK5). I checked this with the two parts of K-razy Antics.

On a real VIC-20, a softloaded 16K long PRG file with load adress at $6000 would of course 'load' into the range $6000 .. $9FFF, have a tough time with the character ROM at $8000..$8FFF, and then happily crash the VIC by scribbling all over VIC registers + I/O in $9000..$9FFF.

[buzbard]

If it's a raw *.bin file (i.e., without load address), I'd expect such a 16K file to be attached to BLK3 and BLK5. That's quite a common case, and would spare us to work with split files for $6000 and $A000.

That would be convenient, even better, I think, would be the VRT format. If someone would put that into VICE, life would be so much better! But, I don't think the VICE team has a dedicated VIC maintainer right now.

However, in WinVICE 2.4.2 x86 r27141, which I have currently installed, a 16K cart attach to $6000 with a raw *.bin only loaded the first half to $A000 (and seemingly ignored the rest), and with a prepended start address of $6000 it didn't do anything (just zeroes in BLK3 and BLK5). I checked this with the two parts of K-razy Antics.

That was part of the problem that I reported, not only 16k but any 4k or 8k rom not having a 2-byte load address would attach to BLK5 no matter which menu item you selected. Those issues have been fixed in WinVICE-2.4.20-x86-r29656.

On a real VIC-20, a softloaded 16K long PRG file with load adress at $6000 would of course 'load' into the range $6000 .. $9FFF, have a tough time with the character ROM at $8000..$8FFF, and then happily crash the VIC by scribbling all over VIC registers + I/O in $9000..$9FFF.

Right, that's what I was thinking.

[groepaz]

That would be convenient, even better, I think, would be the VRT format. If someone would put that into VICE, life would be so much better! But, I don't think the VICE team has a dedicated VIC maintainer right now.

try convincing TLR to put some work into it ) adapting the .vrt format has been on the todo list for a while now... but there is (a lot of) more important things to fix, so that will likely not happen soon.

If it's a raw *.bin file (i.e., without load address), I'd expect such a 16K file to be attached to BLK3 and BLK5. That's quite a common case, and would spare us to work with split files for $6000 and $A000.

implemented in r29698 (VICE doesnt make a difference between files with load address and plain binaries when attaching cartridges though, except it can auto detect where to attach them when there is a load address)