Mark Wickens

Cosmic Fly stand-alone version (for FX-870P/VX-4)

…reproduced here from the original file: http://luckleo.cocolog-nifty.com/pockecom/VX-4/HTML/issue/vx-4_issue-001_cosmic-fly.html.

Casio’s Pocket Computer VX-4 and FX-870P games are almost non-existent on the internet.

The games for the PC-G850 series, which is made by Sharp and is a school education model like the VX-4, are in contrast to the flood of games on the internet. This situation is the reason why I opened the “Casio VX-4 (Pocket Computer) page”, but the lack of information about the VX-4 is a problem.

However, Jun Amano’s “Casio PB-1000 forever!” It felt like a high threshold for beginners.

After installing the file management utility “VX-Menu” (for PB-1000), transfer the game file to the pocket computer, save it, and run it.
There is also a version that can be played with normal BASIC without using VX-Menu, but even in that case, when the program is run, it displays CONNECT: and requests an RS-232C connection. To play, you have to connect RS-232C and send a binary file from your PC. After that, the game will be started with MODE110 (execution address).

Both methods are excellent in terms of utilization efficiency of the user memory of the pocket computer, but it is far from the situation where a person unfamiliar with VX-4 loads and runs.

Therefore, although the memory usage efficiency is poor, it would be convenient if there was a standalone version that automatically loads and executes machine language by embedding a machine language program in a BASIC program with a DATA statement, which is one of the common methods for Pocket Computers.

I made a standalone version of Mr. Ao’s “Cosmic Fly” (all machine language).

Cosmic Fly is the original Public Domain software that Mr. Gernot Fink of Germany programmed for PB-1000. It’s a thing. The picture below is an image of the execution screen.

This time, through Mr. Jun Amano, Mr. Ao gave me permission to publish it here, so I will publish it here.

Click here to download CosmicV4.zip.

The README is here.

The target machines are FX-870P and VX-4, but VX-4 that does not have 32KB and RP-8 and RP-33 that do not have expanded memory are excluded. This is because the size of the executable program is a little less than 6KB, so the VX-4, which has only 8KB of RAM, cannot even load files with F.COM.

The operation procedure up to the game is as follows.

Transfer CosmicV4.bas in CosmicV4.zip (and clr.b if the extension CLEAR for securing the machine language area is not installed in the pocket computer) from the PC to one of the program areas P0 to P9 of the pocket computer. increase. Any transfer software on the PC side is fine, but PB-1000 Data Communicator32 ver.1.31 is convenient.
On the pocket computer side, load with F.COM. In the case of RS-232C, it is necessary to match the communication conditions of both.
Allocate a 1520-byte machine language area with extended CLEAR. In the case of clr.b, if you run it first, MODE110(&H18F5) is displayed, so execute MODE110(&H18F5),1520 [EXE] in command mode to secure the machine language area. Also, if you have already installed CLEAR-ZERO, execute MODE110(0),1520 [EXE]
RUN CosmicV4.bas. This time, we use a quick loader with improved readability, operability, and portability. This loader works like this:
- If the machine language area allocated by extended CLEAR is insufficient, issue a warning and exit.
- If the first 24 bytes of the machine in the machine language area are identical to the data, do not load the machine language.
- Display the load size on the way (The load time is slightly less than double, but if you want to speed it up, please comment the PRINT part).
- With this kind of behavior, once you load it, you can basically start Cosmic Fly by RUN without thinking about anything.
- However, if you want to secure the user area, delete CosmicV4.bas with F.COM’s NEW command. Even in that case, Cosmic Fly’s machine language program remains in the machine language area, so Cosmic Fly can be started by executing MODE110(7376)[EXE]
The game is an orthodox invader type game. Move the SPACE SHIP left and right to avoid the balls that the enemy’s Cosmic Fly shoots and SHOT to destroy the Cosmic Fly. Key operations are
```
 [EXE] ... start game,
 [BRK] ... end game,
 [ 4 ] ... move SHIP left,
 [ 6 ] ... move SHIP right,
 [ 0 ] ... shot Launch
```
Also, as an important note, if you run a C program in C language mode, the data in the machine language area will be destroyed, so the Cosmic Fly machine language program loaded in the machine language area will also be destroyed. It will be. Even in such a case, CosmicV4.bas has a simple check function that automatically loads the machine language into memory if there is no Cosmic Fly machine language or if it is destroyed, so you can run it without thinking about anything. If you try to start Cosmic Fly manually with MODE110(7376), it will run out of control.

PS

I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. Ao and Mr. Jun Amano for not only Cosmic Fly, but also for giving me various valuable information about the VX-4 through their HP.
A standalone version of “Casio PB-1000 forever!” will soon be incorporated into Jintori (so-called Reversi).