Flexible EasyFlash Loader

EasyFlash loader with usage examples, demonstrating a rather useful scenario involving:

• IRQ-driven tune playback while loading, and
• moving data under ROM and I/O while handling IRQ requests.

Notes

• Assemble source files with ACME cross-assembler. Version 0.96.4 has been successfully tested. A Windows executable is provided for user convenience.
• To use the provided Makefile you need GNU make. A Windows executable is provided for user convenience.
• Under Windows you might want to use MSYS2 or Git Bash.

CRT image

To create the CRT image, the tool bin2efcrt is used. This is invoked with a relative path, ../tools: simply build this tool first and then come back to this example.
To test the cartridge in a recent version of VICE Emulator, run x64 -cartcrt tst_loader.crt or attach it using "File => Attach cartridge image... => CRT Image...". You can also write it to your EasyFlash.

Loading under ROM and I/O directly

The "load_under_io" folder provides replacement files for loading directly under ROM and I/O, which is discouraged as it involves quite some overhead (to backup/restore $01 and the I flag).

Productions that use this loader

This loader was used to put together my EasyFlash version of Last Ninja 2.

Left as an exercise

• Refactor the project structure to make examples "pluggable" into the main loader.
• Make good use of empty areas within the first two memory banks.
• Add support for data crunchers. The drawback here is that decrunching increases loading times.