Documentation for: Mode conversion and disassembler
By M.Bobrowski.
Text also by M.Bobrowski.
Mode0/4 Mode1/4 Mode4/0 Mode4/1 These programs allow to convert screen
pictures from one graphic mode to
another, eg. those created by AMX Stop
Press, AMX SuperArt, Fleet Street
Editor or Wapping Editor. As a matter
of fact there is an excellent screen
mode converting utility on the AMX Stop
Press disc which could do the job.
However, not all our members have the
AMX Stop Press package, and what is
more important, this utility allows any
conversion only in one direction,
ie. from a higher mode to a lower
mode, eg. from Mode 5 to Mode 1 or
from Mode 2 to Mode 0. I have written
two programs which can convert a Mode 0
or Mode 1 picture into Mode 4. Of
course, after conversion from a
high-resolution Mode 0 to a
low-resolution Mode 4 some details are
lost and resulting Mode 4 pictures may
need corrections, but such corrections
can be easily done with any 'Pixel
Editor' program.
There is another problem with the
conversion from Mode 1 to Mode 4.
When running the program 'Mode1/4' a
question:-
'Convert all foreground colours to
white (Y/N) ? ' will appear on the
screen. Depending on the answer given a
different result is obtained. With the
'Y' answer, all red and yellow pixels
visible on Mode 1 picture are converted
into white pixels, whereas with the
'N' answer, red pixels are changed into
black, and yellow pixels are converted
into white onces.
Of course, in both cases all white
pixels will remain white as well as all
black pixels will remain black. You may
examine the problem using the 'Henry1'
Mode 1 screen file which is included
on the disc.
There are two versions of a machine
code program, called 'UDA19' and
'UDA70' for 'Universal DisAssembler'.
The first version has been assembled
from the location &1900 on, and the
second version from the location
&7000 on. (Thus, the second version
can be used only in Mode 7 or in any of
the shadow modes.)
The main feature of both versions is
that the output can be directed to a
screen, to a printer or to a disc in
the form of pure ASCII file. Such a
file can be then edited by any word
processor or by the Master Edit to
restitute the otherwise unknown source
code.
Another feature of the 'UDA' utility is
that it allows to disassemble fragments
of various ROMs installed in your
machine as well as fragments of the
MOS.