Re: [stella] CLD

Subject: Re: [stella] CLD
From: Kevin Horton <khorton@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2001 15:59:25 -0500
At 12:51 9/3/01 -0500, you wrote:
I'm working on a 255 game menu multicart, and during testing, every game worked except for Rescue Terra I. I was looking through the Rescue Terra I code, and noticed the suspicious absence of the SEI and CLD commands at the start of the code. Sure enough, using the PCAEWin debugger, if you set the decimal flag before the program runs, it crashes that same way as on my multicart.

OK, I'm gonna let everyone know a "secret" about the 6502 processor line (including the 6507). On any interrupt (reset, NMI, IRQ) the decimal flag is cleared. On any interrupt (except reset) the flags are saved (including the IRQ enable flag) THEN the IRQ flag is set, disabling further IRQ's. Interrupts get re-enabled when you do an RTI because it pulls the flags, including the IRQ flag, so if it was clear originally it will be cleared once the interrupt ends, re-enabling the interrupts "automagically". BTW, yes, reset *IS* identical to NMI, only it is level-sensitive. If you hold the processor in reset it will continually try to save the flags and PC to the stack (but, the R/W line is forced high so no write takes place, even though the addressing to write to the stack does, and the SP decrements). And, since it is an interrupt, the interrupt flag will be set, and decimal flag cleared.


So, at the start of your code, you DO NOT EVER need CLD or SEI because the processor does these for you :-). I always include them though since it's only 2 bytes, and the 6502 gods smile down on you if you do so. :-) If you're strapped for space you can leave 'em out.

BTW I got this info out of the original MOS semiconductor programming manual for the 65xx series parts.



-
Archives (includes files) at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/
Unsub & more at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/

Current Thread