Re: Direct Page and Stack Pointer Question

["twdorris" <twdorris@mip.net>]

As already pointed out, that's the whole point of direct page
addressing...to provide quicker access to memory locations in the 0x00
to 0xFF range.  Keep in mind the time frame of this processor's design
and use.  Speed was critical and we had to optimize every freaking
clock cycle.  Direct page access was one way to do that.  So there is
no way to "overcome" this limitation.   It's just what it is.  You want
to see something slick, look up some of the litlte tricks people used
to play with the stack pointer and pushing data onto the GS's hires
screen back in the day.  Cool stuff.

As for relocating code segments, I'm pretty sure the GS supported this
to some extent.  Although I never got a chance to mess around with it
much before moving on to other things (early highschool attention span
is very short).  :)  Actually, I'm almost positive it supported
something along those lines, but it was not built into the processor.
Instead, I believe it was built into the program loader of some sort.
If I recall correctly, you had to setup a reference table of sorts to
indicate to the loader where all your address access points were and
the loader would take care of updating all those points when your
executable code segment was allocated a physical location.

Thomas Dorris