CSE 0175 (temporarily CSE 190): Demo Programming

Winter 2017

Instructor: Hovav Shacham, hovav@cs.ucsd.edu
Lectures: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30–1:50 PM in ~~WLH 2204~~ CSB 005
Project Presentations: Tuesday, March 21st, 12:00–2:00 PM in CSB 005
Office hours: Thursdays, 2:00–4:00 PM in EBU3B 3124
Discussion forum: CSE 190-A discussion forum hosted on Piazza

Overview

This course is an 8-bit analog of CSE 125, Software System Design and Implementation.

Student teams will implement an audio and video demonstration program that is as impressive as possible on a classic 8-bit computer, 1982’s Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K.

As in CSE 125, students will work in groups on a substantial project, produce a software artifact that they can show to potential employers, and have fun.

In addition, by taking CSE 0175, students will learn exactly how a simple computer is implemented, including the CPU, chipset, and peripherals; and learn to program under extreme resource constraints that require optimization down to the cycle.

Calendar and Readings

Resources: Z80 Programming

Rodnay Zaks’ Programming the Z80, 3rd ed., on paper and online from z80.info
Zilog Z80 manuals at Bitsavers
The Undocumented Z80 Documented, by Sean Young and Jan Wilmans
WikiTI page on Z80 optimization
Many more resources at z80.info

Resources: ZX Spectrum Hardware

Chris Smith’s The ZX Spectrum ULA: How to Design a Microcomputer, available from Amazon
ULA technical information from Chris Smith
Ben Versteeg’s expansion hardware for the Spectrum

Resources: ZX Spectrum ROM

Ian Logan and Frank O’Hara’ The Complete Spectrum ROM Disassembly, available used at AbeBooks
Hypertext annotated disassembly of the ZX Spectrum ROM (and of several Spectrum games), created using SkoolKit
Spectrum 128K ROM disassembly by Matthew Wilson, Geoff Wearmouth, Paul Farrow, Rui Tunes, and Andrew Owen

Resources: ZX Spectrum Programming

Jonathan Cauldwell’s How to Write ZX Spectrum Games, in 18 chapters
David Webb’s Advanced Spectrum Machine Language

Resources: One-Bit Audio Programming

Z80 chip music bank and information
Discussion threads on the 1-bit forum
One-bit information and code: Shiru; irrlicht project; Beepola

Software for the ZX Spectrum

Demoscene sites: Demotopia
Everything about the ZX Spectrum at World of Spectrum
A Visual Compendium of ZX Spectrum games

Programming Tools

Assemblers: z80asm, zasm, pasmo
Compilers: z88dk, SDCC
Binary to tape utilities: ZeroTeam bin2tap; ZX_Tap, part of the ZX_Beep spectrum starter project
The z80dasm disassembler, based on the dz80 disassembler
Fuse, the Free Unix Spectrum Emulator

In Your Browser

JSSpeccy, a JavaScript Spectrum emulator based on Fuse; JSSpeccy 2, a rewrite
ZX Spectrum software library at the Internet Archive

History

A talk about the history of the demoscene, presented at ASSEMBLY 05 by Tamas Polgar
A 2012 roundup of links about the demoscene at MetaFilter
Oral history of Zilog and the Z80, at the Computer History Museum
A talk about game development on the ZX Spectrum by Doug Burns
Michael Steil’s ultimate Game Boy talk at 33C3. The Game Boy had a Sharp LR35902 processor related to the 8080 and Z80.
A talk about “8 Bit & ‘8 Bitish’ Graphics” at GDC 2016 by Mark Ferrari