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Software Vault: The Gold Collection
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CRL.DOC
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1993-06-26
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crl.doc
Copyright (C) 1980, M J Maney
last revised 9/6/80 21:55
This file shall attempt to explain the use of the macros defined in
the "crl.lib" library file.
The purpose of the crl.lib file is to make it less painful to write
function modules in assembler that can be linked to the code
generated by the BDS C compiler. There are several reasons for
wishing to do this, the primary one being the sometimes grossly
inefficent code sequences that the compiler generates. This is not
due so much to the compiler's simple-mindedness as to the limited
capabilities of the 8080 instruction set. A clever programmer can
produce much more compact code than ANY compiler for the 8080
(or probably most any of the early microprocessors), and in some
cases the difference can be simply astounding. Thus, we shall at
times desire to replace a function originally coded in C with a
carefully optimized one written in assembler. And thus the driving
force behind the package herein described.
There is currently one minor nuisance involved in utilizing the
macros...the hex file is NOT properly loaded by the CP/M load
utility, so good old ddt's services are required (still). But at
least all you have to do is use ddt to load the hex file. Once
the image is in memory, all that is required is to "save" the
image as a ".crl" file.
For example, to load the functions in strfun.asm into the crl
format file (named, of course, strfun.crl), the procedure is:
1) assemble strfun
2) use ddt to load the hex file produced. I've been clearing the
background to zero first, which helped during debugging of the
crl macros, but isn't really needed.
3) note what address ddt reports, this is the top of the memory
image that must be saved.
4) exit ddt, remembering the address
5) save the memory image using the built-in "save" utility and
the address that you (hopefully) remembered. The number of
"pages" that must be saved are
n = ceiling((address - base of TPA) / 0x100)
where ceiling(x) is the smallest integer equal or larger than x.
For standard CP/M, this is simply the "100's" digit of the
address....at least for the sample files I sent.
6) That's it
If this sounds like a lot of work, let me reassure you...its
easier to do than to explain. I could execute the whole sequence
in far less time than its taken me to write all this, and maybe
in less time than it takes to read this (unless you're a graduate
of the Evelyn Wood system).