Micro­power

DJUMP D

In Nas-Sys 3 command D causes a jump to £D000, which is the start address of the ROM version of Zeap 2. Of course, any software which runs £D000, in ROM or RAM, for example a printer initialisation routine, can be accessed by the D command. The Nas-Sys 1 command table contains the address of the error message for command D (location £078E). Of course, with an Eprom Programmer it is easy to change this address to £D000, or to any other useful address, such as the start of a disassembler (£C400 for Nas-Dis).

Execute Exxxx

In many ways this is the most important command, since you use it to run all machine code programs. The first thing the execute command routine does is to set the value stored at location £0C26, known as CONFLG, to −1. It then throws away its address by POPing it off the stack into the AF register pair. Consequently any program which is to be accessed with an E command cannot return to the monitor with a simple RET instruction, whereas a program accessed by some other command letter, such as the Compare routine mentioned above, can end in such a way.

The E routine next checks the number of hexadecimal values in the input line, ARGN; if it is not zero, HL must contain the specified start address of the program to be executed, and this is stored in the workspace at £0C69. If no address has been entered, execution will continue from the last address stored here. The registers BC, DE, HL, AF and SP are then loaded from the Register save area in the workspace (£0C61 – £0C6C) and the execution address is put at the top of the stack. When a program is interrupted at a breakpoint the current registers are saved in the Register Save Area. When the program is continued fro the breakpoint the above manipulations ensure that all the registers are restored to the values they had before the break. However, they have the result that when a program is entered by the E command the contents of HL, DE and BC bear no relationship to the first three values in the input line; they either contain the values stored at the last breakpoint, or are set to zero if there has been a RESET since the last break. Of course, the values are retained in the workspace at ARG1, ARG2 and ARG3 and may be recovered if needed.

The contents of AF are pushed onto the stack and bit 3 of port 0 is set; this activates a circuit which sends a non-maskable interrupt to the processor after 4 M1 cycles. After recovering AF the routine comes to a return-from NMI instruction, RETN. Because the specified start address is at the top of the stack, this caused a jump to the routine to be executed. Three M1 cycles have now occurred, therefore as soon as the first instruction of this routine has started the NMI line is activated. Consequently, the processor is interrupted at the end of the first instruction, and this causes a jump to