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Introduction

This document is supposed to give people a start in vectrex programming. For my sake I will assume that you are familiar with non 'vectrex special' related hardware and software used. Such as programming a 6809 cpu in assembler, what hex, bin and dec numbers are, what a 256byte page is and so on. I will try to cover many aspects, but mainly will cover 'standard' procedures offered by the Vectrex BIOS. Actually this is more a course on vectrex BIOS than about vectrex. Perhaps in the future I'll do some chapters on the actual hardware programming, but let's start of easy, ok?

Notice:
Most things in this document can be found out looking at other sources available. Like the great dissassembled ROM images done by Fred Taft, the BIOS disassmblies by also Fred Taft and Bruce Tomlin. Many sources of homebrewn software, from 'simple' pieces of music, to full blown up games, rivaling the original commercial ones. I can't take credit for what you find in here, because in many parts it is just a compilation of stuff found elsewhere. If you look for further information, be it something as yet uncovered by this text or some further going explanations, be sure to look at these other sources as well.

Notice also:
I'm in no way responsible what you do with/to your vectrex. I don't think much harm can be done by just programming the machine (apart from burning the tube), but whatever comes of it, it is your own risk. I tried all programs covered in this documentation with my own vectrex, so they should work all right, but to cover my back... again, I take no responsibility whatsoever.

This was written in April 1998 by Christopher Salomon the document is public domain (at least the parts written by me). Comments and vectrex talk are welcome. (email: [email protected])
All code within this document was successfully assembled using 'Frank A. Vorstenbosch, Kingswood Software' Crossassmbler. It can be found at his homepage at http://www.falstaff.demon.co.uk/cross.html. I used version as09 v1.11.

Following command line was used to assemble:

as09.exe -w200 -h0 -l -mcti progname.asm >error

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