amiga-news.de - Coding workshops: Amiga 500 programming at hardware level

20.Aug.2024 Coding workshops: Amiga 500 programming at hardware level
Michael Martin shares detailed insights into his experimental programming projects for the Amiga 500 on his Bumbershoot Software Blog. Over the past few weeks, he has created a small, coherent series of practical courses in English. He explores advanced techniques of direct hardware programming and experiments with effects such as the Copper Bars.

In the first part of the blog series, Amiga 500: Drawing a Bitmap on the Bare Metal, Martin explains in precise detail how he can display a logo image directly on the Amiga hardware, bypassing higher-level libraries. The basics of the Copper are explained and a basic code for displaying the graphic is presented.

In Amiga 500: Mode Switching, Martin explores the use of the Copper chip in the Amiga 500 to achieve various display effects. He discusses how this technology enables dynamic changes in the video display that can manipulate the appearance of the screen in real time. The article goes into the technical details of setting up and manipulating the copper lists to switch display modes and enhance graphical output on the Amiga.

In Amiga 500: Alternate Graphics Memory Layouts, Michael Martin describes how he manipulated the graphics memory layout of the Amiga 500 to display more colors at the same time. He discusses technical adjustments and programming methods that make it possible to expand the initially limited color display and better utilize the Amiga 500's performance.

In Amiga 500: Completing The Display, Martin presents the implementation of an EGA palette display on the Amiga 500. He explains how he completed the hardware control to produce the desired display and considers this to be the preliminary end point of his work on graphics output, although he plans to explore further hardware functions.

In Amiga 500: Using Our Full Power, the aim is to fully utilize the power of the Amiga 500 by taking advantage of the capabilities of the blitter chip. Martin focuses on how the blitter, a specialized coprocessor for graphics operations, is used to accelerate graphics operations such as copying data blocks, which significantly increases the efficiency of certain program parts.

In Amiga 500: Bare-Metal Startup Code, Martin explains how to take full control of the computer. He uses the startup code from the book “Bare Metal Amiga Programming” by E. Th. van den Oosterkamp. This explains how to handle hardware interrupts and recognize key presses to gain deeper control over the system.

In the latest blog post, Amiga 500: Direct Keyboard Access, Martin discusses extending the code to display the EGA palette on the Amiga 500 to include the ability to control the program using keyboard inputs. He describes in detail the technical challenges and the necessary techniques required to implement this function, which goes beyond the previous mouse click controls.

The series provides a good insight into programming at the hardware level, with many practical examples and understandable explanations. (nba)

[News message: 20. Aug. 2024, 10:34] [Comments: 1 - 22. Aug. 2024, 08:15]
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