A while back I got annoyed with the Turbo Assembler embedded in RR and wanted to see if I could exchange it for a macro edition. After some poking around together with Lotus, I came up with the following solution I just thought I'd share with you.


Turbo Macro Pro v1.1 mod for Retro Replay 3.8b

This text describes how to modify the Cyberpunx Retro Replay 3.8b cartridge
software to load a custom assembler when invoking the TASS BASIC command.
More specifically it shows how to replace the Turbo Assembler contained in the
cartridge with Turbo Macro Pro v1.1 from Style (http://turbo.style64.org).

Offsets refer to the Retro Replay 3.8b ROM Image and are also compatible with
the newly available 3.8P patched version by hannenz.


What TASS Does

The code loaded and started when entering TASS in BASIC is located at offset
$800F:

This copies the code at offset $8039-$80A2 to memory address $0400 and jumps to
$0400 upon RTS (stack manipulation)

The code copied is:

Upon execution from address $0400 this code copies offsets:

$A100-$A5FF (RR bank 5) to memory location $9000-$94FF
$C100-$DDFF (RR bank 6) to memory location $9500-$B1FF
$E100-$FDFF (RR bank 7) to memory location $B200-$CEFF

Finally it jumps to address $9000 to start TASS


How to Patch It

Turbo Macro Pro v1.1 comes in different versions and takes up a bit more space
than the old Turbo Assembler. The start address is $8000 instead of $9000 and
its end address depends on what version you choose. All current versions can be
contained within $8000-$CAFF though and it seems to store its variables at $CB00
so it should be OK to just modify the above code to copy the new Turbo Macro Pro
into $8000-$CAFF and then jump to $8000.

Fortunately there are still some free pages in the Retro Replay ROM image to
contain the extra code. A couple of these are at offsets $7800 and $B700

So we can place the new Turbo Macro Pro image at the following locations:

$A100-$A7FF (RR bank 5) destination memory location $8000-$86FF
$C100-$DDFF (RR bank 6) destination memory location $8700-$A3FF
$E100-$FDFF (RR bank 7) destination memory location $A400-$C0FF
$B700-$BDFF (RR bank 5) destination memory location $C100-$C7FF
$7800-$7AFF (RR bank 3) destination memory location $C800-$CAFF

The following code copies the new data to the new memory location:

Note: The code is self-modifying and is here shown at its correct origin.

This new code takes up a bit more space than the old one so we cannot just
overwrite the old with the new. Instead we can place it somewhere else in the
same RR bank. Offset $8121 fulfills our requirements.

The code that copies the above code into address $0400 now needs to be changed
as well. This is located at offset $8028. The new code looks like this:


Now all we need is to split the Turbo Macro Pro into 5 pieces. Use your favorite
HEX Editor like this:

Part1: Take offset $0000-$06FF from TMP and put in $A100-$A7FF in RR ROM
Part2: Take offset $0700-$23FF from TMP and put in $C100-$DDFF in RR ROM
Part3: Take offset $2400-$40FF from TMP and put in $E100-$FDFF in RR ROM
Part4: Take offset $4100-$47FF from TMP and put in $B700-$BDFF in RR ROM
Part5: Take offset $4800-$4DFF from TMP and put in $7800-$7AFF in RR ROM

Changing the Default Colors of TMP 1.1

In the event you whish to customize the default colors for TMP 1.1, they are
located in the TMP binary at offset $0015 ($A115 in your newly patched ROM).
The order of the colors is: Border, Screen, Command Line, Status Line, Text,
Error Text, Marked Text.


Happy modding,
Devia/Ancients

Can someone patch this in the NTSC version and compile it as a .bin for flashing? I suck at coding.

boy, that's great!!! I ever dreamed of having the TMP integrated in RR-ROM. I'll try immediately!
thanx a lot for this great info!
i start loving this board! it was a great idea to start this forum!

tried it with TMP+REU/Style. It rocks!!! Great!

Big ups to Devia for this great Article!

Also, if you are hacking ROMs, please share the finished images for our less experienced members to enjoy

Keep it up!

Well.. the reason for not supplying any patched ROM binaries is because there're a lot of different versions of TMP and some people migth then start asking for ROMs with other versions in them.
I guess one could write a patcher for it tho.. so people could choose whatever they wanted put in the ROM.

I could upload the 3.8P ROM with the plain version of TMP if you guys want that?

I'm a PAL user and honestly don't give NTSC much thought ..is there an actual NTSC version of the RR ROM? I mean is it different from the PAL one?
If so, please upload that one here and I'll happily supply TMP patched versions of them both if that's what you guys want?

oh and thnx for the feedback btw

/Devia

Good work!

Perhaps Style are willing to create a special Retro Replay version of Turbo Macro Pro. It really is the best Turbo Assembler out there, and I think people without a REU would like the ability to backup the source code in the Retro Replay 32 kb RAM.

as far as i know the +REU mods of TMP backup almost the whole RAM ($08800-$FFFF), so the RAM-Contents before exiting TMP can easily be restored from the REU. So, to backup only the SRC in 32K would afford another concept.
But the idea is good! (Luckily i _have_ a REU...)
One should tell the guys at Style if they are interested in developping for the RR.

Oh, and yes: TMP is the far best assembler ever seen on C64!!

MMC64 could also be used for RAM backup. Accessing pre-allocated 64 KB file with 8.3 name in root dir is dead easy and doesn't take too much code.

I suggested this to some involved Style-member a while ago, and if I remember correctly he said that he didn't own a RetroReplay.

...and by the way: If someone patches a rr38b rom with TMP+REU (and do not remove the SSGET-functionality or something like that) then please upload.

i'll upload the RR38P-PAL+TMPREU in the upload section!
sorry for the late reply, just re-read this thread...

I just uploaded a 3.8P ROM including the newly released Turbo Macro Pro 1.2 along with an updated .txt version of this howto.

Cool! Don't forget to add a comment in the News section

Hello,

i want to change another TASS version for my RR ROM. I've checked your current RR+Turbo Macro Pro v1.2.BIN, it works - but i need for my work another TASS version in ROM.

..so i tried to understand what you are doing, but i don't know right what i have to do in detail:

First, i wan't to know how you patch it:
do you have used a real C64 with RR or do you have used a disassembler on PC and reassembled with new changes?

First i'd tried to reassemble RRRom3.8p on PC:
Ok i got my asm code from bin, but i can't reassemble back, because it's too much size...(acme tolds me that)
.. besides i really don't know, which code i've to put in which lines.

I would be glad, if you can give me a bit help, so that i can go further fo it step for step...

I'm really interessted to patch but i stagnated in some details..

Greets Rio.

The relevant code snippets were found and "disassembled" on the C64 using the Retro Replay ROM monitor. Then I simply wrote my own replacement code, assembled them to the correct addresses using some random assembler and patched them into the ROM file using a simple HEX editor.

So, the "How to do it"-spun version of this article would look something like this:

1. Assemble the following code and strip the eventual 2 byte load address from the resulting PRG file:

2. Place the result in the RR ROM file at offset $8121 - If you modify this code, make sure the result does not take up more than 223 bytes of space. To modify it to match your own TASS version you might need to read and understand the code in order to change it to suit your needs.

3. Assemble the following code and strip the eventual 2 byte load address from the resulting PRG file:

4. Place the result in the RR ROM file at offset $8028 - This code may not take up more than 17 bytes!!! - but you should not have any need to modify it in this case. (This is the code that copies the previous code to $0400 and executes it)

5. Strip any eventual load address from your TASS binary and split it up into separate files of sizes matching the "holes" in the ROM you're going to place them in. The "holes" in the ROM file that I use in the above code are at the following file offsets:

Part1 - $A100-$A7FF - 1792 bytes
Part2 - $C100-$DDFF - 7424 bytes
Part3 - $E100-$FDFF - 7424 bytes
Part4 - $B700-$BDFF - 1792 bytes
Part5 - $7800-$7AFF - 768 bytes

A total of 19200 bytes - if you need more, you'll have to find the free space yourself