Let´s give this example to clarify my question.

lets say i take all 16 colors of my game (screen 5) and darken them one tint.
then darken them again and again.
result: a fade out.

I have a programm to make bin files out of bas files.

NOW:
Can i make a bin file to fade out the colours in my game?
And can I call or usr this file while i´m in my .bas file in the middle of my game,

(like a: If hero=hit then gosub"fadeout.bin" .............
and later on in the fadeout.bin file..... return (to game.bas)



This whole question is because in basic (and especially 2gether with nBasic), there is a limited amount of memory, a limit in the size of my game.
So if I can split my file in more than one file, binary files, or machine coded files
this would be beneficial for my basic file..........

I guess :?

you can use a bin file to fadeout/in.
but you have to know the adresses of the routines in the binfile.

fadeout could be at #c000
fadein could be at #c010

defusr(0)=&hc000:a=usr(0) to fadeout..

ah well, you can also use basic to fadeout. with NBASIC it's fast enough.
ill fire openmsx and see what i used... i think it was old code:

fori=0to7:forj=0to31:x=vpeek(&h7680+j)-17:x=x+(xand&h88)/8:vpoke&h7680+j,x:nextj:color=restore:nexti:cls

dont forget _turboon:<code>:_turbooff or it'll be very slow

oh, using more binary routines spares a LOT of memory... using ASM for fading,cursorcontrol and that sort of things can save you a lot..

What I usually do is code the DEFUSRx=address stuff inside the binary. Doing a BLOAD"filename.ext",R will execute the small piece of code doing the DEFUSR's for you. That way you don't have to know the addresses and it'll always work... Maybe you should just know the start of the full code to protect it against any unwanted overwriting (by doing a CLEAR 200,address statement).

hmmm,
interesting indeed.
Ok, lets say I make this fadeout with an assembler......
no, let's take a more simple example.
Let's say I make a programm with an assembler to print variable "a" on screen.
I start at &hc000
Is it an idea to bsave this programm likeso:
bsave"printa.bin",&hc000,&hc(end)

and then in basic I have this program:
10 bload"printa.bin"
20 a=10
30 defusr(0)=&hc000
40 a=usr(0)

is this the way to combine basic and assembly....
or to be more precies,
is this the way to combine a basic file and a binary file?

I know this example is somewhat stupid,
but this is a start to combining larger machine coded routines with basic....
like scrolling backgrounds, sprite collisions, fadein/out etc. etc. and so on....

or?

Yes, this is the way although number after DEFUSR should not be in " ( ) " Example: DEFUSR9=&HC000

As BASIC variables are not very easy to handle in assembler, I recommend you to use USR to pass data between ML code and BASIC. Here is simple example, that just calculates *2 in assembler:

10 DEFINT A-Z
20 BLOAD"CALCX2.BIN" ' You can also use ",R" to run custom init routine
30 DEFUSR=&HC000 ' Same as DEFUSR0=&HC000
40 PRINT USR(10) ' Pass variable trough #F7F8

Here is the assembler part:

USR:	EQU #F7F8 ' Address used to pass variables to BASIC
USR0:	EQU #F39A ' Address, where DEFUSR in BASIC stores the start address.

	DB #FE 		' Bin file header start byte
	DW BEGIN	' Begin address (#C000)
	DW END		' End address
	DW START	' Init address used only if ",R" is after BLOAD

	ORG #C000	' Address, where this program will be loaded.
BEGIN:
	LD HL,(USR)	' Get number from USR(X)
	ADD HL,HL	' * 2
	LD (USR),HL	' Result to BASIC
	RET		' Return to BASIC

START:	' Here is custom init routine that is used 
	' to replace line 30 in BASIC, if ",R" is used.

	LD HL,#C000
	LD (USR0),HL
	RET
END:

When you run this program, number 20 should be printed to screen.

NYYRIKKI: better is doing this first:

LD A,($F663)    ; get VALTYP
CP 2
CALL NZ,$2F8A   ; convert to integer if it isn't yet
LD HL,($F7F8)

This way you'll be sure to get an integer all the time.

Sure, I just wanted to keep the example simple. Maybe it could be a good idea to write an article to www.tni.nl about this as well...

www.tni.nl? map.tni.nl you mean!

In any case, it’s a good idea, indeed.


~Grauw

Yup, sorry about that :-)

Quote:

I have a programm to make bin files out of bas files.

Hm. Note that such BASIC 2 BIN converters often just alter the way you load your program from disk/tape into memory. The program itself will still be in BASIC and may thus overwrite an existing BASIC program.