Re: A85: new 85 hardware...

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Re: A85: new 85 hardware...


On Wed, 2 Sep 1998, Michael Pearce wrote:
> >I'm still amazed that programmers haven't switched to Rigel.  The programs
> >are smaller, faster, the code is just straight z80 (no &s here and there) 
> >and the shell is also smaller. The only thing Usgard has that Rigel
> >doesn't is VAR routines.  But I never see them used that much.
> 
> What is faster about Rigel??  they are both of equal speed while
> executing programs as far as i know.  but i do like the fact that the
> shell is smaller, and programs are also smaller (i can't remember at
> the moment but Solytare for Rigel seems > 100 bytes smaller and it's a
> pretty small game... probably 5 to 10 % smaller).
> 
Usgard still uses fake relocation meaning that somewhere (it was in the
Usgard string last I heard) there is a fix-up table.  This is what makes
the programs bigger and slower because for a program to call a routine
within itself it must call the fix-up table first.  The fix-up table is
just a bunch of jumps.  This makes calls slower than in Rigel.  But ROM
calls are the same because Rigel also uses a fix-up table to account for
different ROM versions.

Rigel uses true relocation so no fix-up table for internal routines is
needed.  Usgard programs are like Rigel libraries (they use fake
relocation.)  This makes libraries bigger.
I emailed Ben Sferrazza with a way to use true relocation with libraries
so that they would also be smaller and calls made to them could be faster.

If you want to know more about that say so and I'll explain.  There wouild
be more restrictions on libraries but I don't want to get into it right
now.

later,

-Humberto Yeverino Jr.

"I kick ass for the Lord."

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