Micro­power

Intelligent Copy Ixxxx yyyy zzzz

This command is used to copy a block od data zzzz bytes long from xxxx to yyyy. The routine first subtracts yyyy from xxxx; if xxxx is greater the normal copy command is used, as data cannot be overwritten. If yyyy is greater, the pointers to the two data blocks (data written from, data written to) are reset to the top ends by adding the length of the blocks less one, and the data is then copied from the top down; this ensures that data is not overwritten.

Basic Cold Start J

Command J causes a jump to £FFFA, which is the ‘cold start’ address for the ROM version of Nascoms Microsoft Basic. The cold start initialises the Basic workspace; as part of this process it uses a small section of memory in the Basic Interpreters text area, with the result that a cold start not only ‘kills’ any program already entered, but also corrupts two or three lines near the start of such a program, which makes recovery of a program after a cold start a much more fiddly process.

Keyboard Kxx

When this command is executed the low byte of the first hex value on the input line, which is held in the L register, is stored at a location called $KOPT (£0C27). When a character is input from the keyboard it is first converted to ASCII, and the value at £0C27 is then tested. If this value is zero, as after a RESET, the keyboard character remains unchanged. If bit 0 of (£0C27) is set and the character is a letter, bit 6 of the character is inverted. This reverses the effect of the shift key for letters, i.e., it changes upper case to lower case, and vice versa; the keyboard now operates in the typewriter mode. If bit 2 of (£0C27) is set, bit 7 of the character is inverted; this reverses the effect of the graphics key. The value stored at £0C27 is retained until changed by a subsequent K command, or returned to zero by RESET.

In the next article I hope to conclude the the discussion of the commands, and give a listing of an improved Read routine, which does not load data if the checksum is incorrect

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