Foenix F256 SuperBASIC Part 4 - Memory Use and considerations

[@markstrickland438]

Thank you for making these Foenux videos! Fingers crossed that I’m finally ordering a Jr. in about two weeks. Paul’s SuperBasic looks great!

[@1BitFeverDreams]

Your memory map graphics are extremely appreciated and I wonder if they should make their way into the official documentation and/or website.

[@8-bitwallofdoom]

I repurposed them from the Foenix Rising newsletter. Hop over to apps.emwhite.org/foenixmarketplace and download issue #4, #5, and #6 for a ton of detail on the F256 platform.

[@johnsobota6234]

Hi - thanks for making these. Does SuperBasic still work if I get the 65C816 processor option?

[@8-bitwallofdoom]

Yes and no. The WDC 65C816 CPU initializes aka 'boots' into emulation mode which is 65C02; to use the machine as 65816, an assembly language programmer needs to manipulate a few status flags. This has been been the case since the Apple II GS as far as I'm aware. More to the point, SuperBASIC is written in 6502 as is the TinyCore MicroKernel so upon booting up with the '816, yes, SuperBASIC works perfectly. I have a 65816 in one of my F256 JRs; it's the best of both worlds; you can run any 65C02 code or 6502 code and the native environment but if you have a machine language program that was specifically written for the '816, it will also run. Norman Yen's "Which Rules the Night" game is native '816 and loads via a single large image into the 24 bit address space. (he also ported it to 65C02 btw). I said alot of things; hopefully I answered your question. Oh, one more thing; Paul has transferred ownership of the Github SuperBASIC repo to the community so there is again, active development of SuperBASIC. It's only a matter of time before somebody ports it directly to run in native '816 mode. How will it perform? We will see : )