Posted By
Sdw
on 2010-01-11
11:04:16
|  IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
I am looking for an IRQ-loader (that is, a loader that can run in the background while an IRQ is playing music etc.) solution for use in a Plus4 demo.
On the C64 I have used the excellent Dreamload system by Ninja/The Dreams (who I think stops by here now and then, how about a Plus4 version? :D)
And on the Vic20 I found a loader by Marko Mäkelä and Pasi Ojala that I could use.
However, on the Plus4 I haven't been able to find any easy and ready-to-use solutions, anyone know if there is something?
Also, I have only been considering the 1541 for now, how about the 1551, will people expect a demo to work on that as well, and if so, how would I go about supporting that as well?
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Posted By
NinjaDRM
on 2010-01-11
13:06:11
| Re: IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
Sdw: Thanks for the warm words, but please don't forget Doc Bacardi who did the bigger part of Dreamload
Actually, degauss and I already discussed a +4-version, but I just did some preparations in the soure-code, no actual implementation yet. degauss also mentioned back then that 1551 is pretty rare these days, so support for it does not need to be very much up in the todo-list.
I don't know One Bit Wonder, but reading its page, it sounds like a good candidate to me if you want to release the demo in this decade 
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2010-01-11
13:44:49
| Re: IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
I have one half-optimized 2-bit IRQ loader that was based on Marko Mäkela's 1-bit loader and eventually made it into Shade. It still needs some cleanup and testing though, but drop me a line of you want the source & al.
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Posted By
Sdw
on 2010-01-11
17:28:30
| Re: IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
Thanks all!
I'll start by having a look at One Bit Wonder. I took a quick peek at it, and it seems like it could do the job!
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Posted By
Sdw
on 2010-01-14
05:16:18
| Re: IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
Wow, I had to sink quite a few hours of tinkering to get One Bit Wonder to work, but I think I have solved all problems now.
The strange thing is that I can't get it to work if I relocate the resident code (that is the code on the computer side, I know that the drive code should be where it is), don't know why, I think they should work anywhere in mem but they don't. Ah well, I can leave them where they are.
Also I kept having the problem that it loaded one byte less than it should all the time (even with the original binary posted here). So I made a small 'fix' in the drive code, and it seems to be working, but to be honest I am not all that good with drive code, so I might have done something stupid.
Anyone have contact info for the original author (TNT/BF), maybe he could help me out?
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2010-01-14
07:40:47
| Re: IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
He used to hang out in the Lemon64 forums a lot as far as I can recall.
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Posted By
Sdw
on 2010-01-14
10:28:34
| Re: IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
Thansk for the tip Gaia, I made contact with him on Lemon64, let's see if he can straighten things out!
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Posted By
TNT
on 2010-01-14
17:39:33
| Re: IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
Yep, there is an embarrassing bug in the last sector handling, sending either one byte too little or 255 too many... To whom I can send a fixed version after I have taken a look to relocation problem so it will get updated here?
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2010-01-14
20:59:27
| Re: IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
Me or Luca. Yay bugfix! 
Edit: the updated version is up!
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Posted By
Chronos
on 2016-01-03
16:56:16
 | Re: IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
Just a quick up for this old topic..
Today i've tried to obtain an irq loader for one of my future projects..
i've checked Krill's (tons of docs, sample i know, but its so difficult) , One bit wonder (its really an executable without a single word of docs??) and Marko Makela's (i cannot compile it yet  ).. ..aaand its going to nowhere.. cause there is no easy solution, just a source or an executable without any docs, so its a real pain in the ass for a beginner.. somebody can provide an easy solution for me just for studying? thanks in advance.. I'm using Csabo's Plus4ide with AS65 assembler..
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Posted By
gerliczer
on 2016-01-04
11:48:44
| Re: IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
Regarding One Bit Wonder, what are you talking about Chronos? There is a fully commented source code even with minimal usage instructions in the download section. Although the source is not AS65 compatible, I don't see anything in it that couldn't be ported to it with relatively few hassle.
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Posted By
Chronos
on 2016-01-04
18:49:09
| Re: IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
sorry, i was lame.. you're right, i don't know how it missed..
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Posted By
bubis
on 2017-04-28
06:26:28
| Re: IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
Hi,
I also became interested in an IRQ loaders recently since I am planning a trackmo. (Question of years, don't get too excited.) I managed to compile Krill's loader for plus4 (it dominated the C64 demoscene for years) but also looked into other modern loaders.
The result of this is a working port of Bitbeaker's Bitfire loader (alfa), it's a project of me and BSZ/NST. We will release it when it's in beta. We may also add 1551 support to it later. The resident part of this loader is <$200 at the moment with all major features enabled (load raw, load + decomp).
We are thinking about porting LFT's Spindle 2 as well. (Maybe we should have started with porting that one first, as it has a pretty cool linking framework too.) We think that a 1551 port of that loader would be super fast on plus4 as it does the depacking in the drive and the 1551's cpu is much faster and transfer is super fast too.
Stay tuned!
Regards,
Andras
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Posted By
bubis
on 2017-04-28
07:13:42
| Re: IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
The latest version of the source code can be found here: https://github.com/dotscha/bitfire
The release will contain compiled windows/plus4 binaries and include files.
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Posted By
Luca
on 2017-04-28
08:52:39
 | Re: IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
Tested the .d64 specimen: great, it will be quite a useful tool for anyone in the future, so keep up the great work.
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Posted By
Mad
on 2017-04-28
21:29:32
| Re: IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
Awesome! The persistent part of Krills loader we use (just loadraw without depacking) however is at the moment something like 339 bytes here. Good to have some more options (and if you do a 1551 option later on, that would be ultra awesome)! Great work!
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Posted By
bubis
on 2017-04-29
09:13:22
| Re: IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
Hi Mad,
Loader only is $c2 bytes. Without a default irq handler and frame counter it is $a1 at the moment.
How about that? 
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Posted By
Mad
on 2017-04-29
10:17:03
| Re: IRQ-loaders for the Plus4?
Haha, nice!!! Would be a nice choice for the next demos/games!!
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