Jeff's VIC 20 Book

[Jeff-20]

It's got the content and it fits better, ship it.

Great addition! Can you think of anything else that could be useful? There will be a lot of changes in the next draft, and I have some free space now.

This book is very impressive. Great work!

Thank you! Let me know if there’s anything you’d like to see added to it.

[srowe]

Great addition! Can you think of anything else that could be useful? There will be a lot of changes in the next draft, and I have some free space now.

Nothing I can think of. I'm keeping a copy of the PDF open most of the time while I'm coding and making frequent reference to it. I'm sure I will have some minor corrections on the next draft but I'm really looking forward to having a physical copy of this.

[AndyH]

This document looks better and better each time, great work. I was wondering if it would be worth adding some captions to certain elements to help explain what they are and what they'd be used for? For example, I spent a few minutes looking at the grid on page 35 before I understood what it was showing, a brief caption would have been helpful.

[Jeff-20]

Can someone help me out? I am working on a new chart for user callable rom subroutines. I have found two different descriptions of the following memory location:

EEE4 (61156) CIOUT Send byte on serial line
and
EEE4 (61156) UNTLK Serial: send untalk command to serial devices

Can anyone help me rectify this or improve the description?

[huffelduff]

Can anyone help me rectify this or improve the description?

Hi there Jeffrey,

I've just print screened the page from mapping the VIC.
According to the book UNTLK starts at EEF6 and CIOUT starts at EEE4

Suggestion: 'Set serial byte to send' maybe?

[srowe]

My preference would be

EEE4 (61156) CIOUT Send byte on serial bus

[Jeff-20]

Suggestion: 'Set serial byte to send' maybe?

My preference would be

Thanks! This is all helpful.

Here's a new section on user callable ROM subroutines that I am working on. It may look rough right now. I am trying to match the style of the Kernal charts. Any thoughts? Also, many of these locations do not seem to have nicknames yet:
VQRH page 100

[srowe]

Here's a new section on user callable ROM subroutines that I am working on. It may look rough right now. I am trying to match the style of the Kernal charts. Any thoughts?

I don't call BASIC routines as much as KERNAL ones, they don't seem to have as clean an interface. There's more state to describe (FAC, other zero page) so it's harder to summarize in a simple way.

Also, many of these locations do not seem to have nicknames yet:

Some of your entries are not at the start of actual routines, for example $DBD7 is one instruction into STORFAC.

[Jeff-20]

I don't call BASIC routines as much as KERNAL ones, they don't seem to have as clean an interface. There's more state to describe (FAC, other zero page) so it's harder to summarize in a simple way.

This is an issue of debate. I know Mike and maybe some others in this thread feel much of this information (in the absence of a full disassembly listing) should be removed. At the moment, I still want to keep these areas in the memory map list just because I like to see where things are even if the information seems to have no practical use.

I hope this subroutine chart might complement the kernal chart just for the register info. I am thinking of deleting all of the "direct call" subroutines and just giving info where the A XY chart might have some value. This would compress all the info into 2 pages instead of 3.

[srowe]

I hope this subroutine chart might complement the kernal chart just for the register info. I am thinking of deleting all of the "direct call" subroutines and just giving info where the A XY chart might have some value. This would compress all the info into 2 pages instead of 3.

That would probably be the best, you'd then be able to find the 'entrypoint' routine. To be honest I usually end up having to go and read the source code to make sure I understand what other context the routine needs.

[Jeff-20]

Most seemed to request the large scale memory map be in color, so I moved it to the interior front page (color printing for the cover).

Now I have a new issue. What colors should be used? For example, the image above from Mastering the VIC uses slightly varied shading as I did in earlier drafts. This may be a dumb question: Would specific colors have significant meanings to you?

Right now, I just picked arbitrary colors, but planned to revisit with input.

[srowe]

Now I have a new issue. What colors should be used? For example, the image above from Mastering the VIC uses slightly varied shading as I did in earlier drafts. This may be a dumb question: Would specific colors have significant meanings to you?

Right now, I just picked arbitrary colors, but planned to revisit with input.

For the diagram on page 46 I just chose colours that contrasted, there was no meaning to them.

[Jeff-20]

The FINAL draft is posted here:
Version 0.9 PDF

I have enough orders to do a print run, so please let me know if you want one too. This PDF is what I am sending to print this week.

As some of you may know, I have not been able to use a VIC is some time. I finally will get a chance to this week! I can't wait to put the book to use, but I am also happy to put this project to rest. Sorry it took so long.

It may look similar at first glance, but there a LOT of little changes in this version. If you see any typos or changes that need to be made, let me know as soon as possible. Thanks, all for helping and following the process.

[Lechuck]

Hi Jeff,

If you can send to Spain, I’d be interested to buy it. Just let me know how can I order it and how can I do the payment.

Thanks

[AndyH]

I would be interested.

How are you getting them printed? If LULU could you drop the link to the published project (I think you can add a markup if you wanted too) and people will be able to get a print locally to them saving on postage and time to deliver.