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Elite on the BBC Micro and NES

Encyclopedia: write_card

[Elite-A, Parasite]

Name: write_card [Show more] Type: Subroutine Category: Encyclopedia Summary: Display a ship card in the encyclopedia Deep dive: The Encyclopedia Galactica
Context: See this subroutine in context in the source code References: This subroutine is called as follows: * ships_ag calls write_card

Arguments: A The number of the ship whose card we want to display, in the range 0 to 27 (see card_addr for a list of ship numbers)
.write_card ASL A \ Set Y = A * 2, so we can use it as an index into the TAY \ card_addr table (which has two bytes per entry) LDA card_addr,Y \ Set V(1 0) to the Y-th entry from card_addr, so it STA V \ points to the data for the ship card that we want to LDA card_addr+1,Y \ show STA V+1 .card_repeat \ We now loop around card_repeat, with each iteration \ printing a different section of the ship card. We \ update V(1 0) so it always points to the data to print \ in the ship card, and we look up the corresponding \ section of the card_pattern table to see how to lay \ out the card (card_pattern contains text coordinates \ and label data that describe the layout of the ship \ cards) JSR MT1 \ Switch to ALL CAPS when printing extended tokens LDY #0 \ Fetch the byte at V(1 0) into X, which will either be LDA (V),Y \ the number of a card section (e.g. 1 for inservice TAX \ date, 2 for combat factor and so on), or a 0 if we \ have reached the end of the card data BEQ quit_card \ If the byte we just fetched is a zero, jump to \ quit_card to return from the subroutine, as we have \ reached the end of the card data BNE card_check \ Otherwise we have found a valid card section, so jump \ to card_check to start looking for the corresponding \ layout pattern in card_pattern (the BNE is effectively \ a JMP as we just passed through a BEQ) .card_find \ If we get here than we want to increment Y until it \ points to the start of the next pattern that comes \ after our current position of card_pattern + Y INY \ Increment Y by 3 to step to the next line of data (as INY \ the card_pattern table is made up of lines of 3 bytes INY \ each) LDA card_pattern-1,Y \ Fetch the last byte of the previous 3-byte line BNE card_find \ If it is non-zero then we are still in the same \ pattern as in the previous iteration, so loop back to \ move onto the next line of 3 bytes \ Otherwise we have moved onto the next pattern, so now \ we check whether we have reached the pattern we seek .card_check \ When we first jump here from above, we want to search \ through the card_pattern table for the pattern that \ corresponds to card section X, where X starts at 1. We \ also jump here with Y set to 0 \ \ We find what we are looking for by stepping through \ each pattern, decreasing X as we go past each pattern, \ and increasing Y so that Y points to the start of the \ next pattern to check (as an offset from card_pattern) \ \ So as we iterate round the loop, at any one point, we \ want to skip over X - 1 more patterns, starting from \ the pattern at card_pattern + Y DEX \ Decrement the section number in X BNE card_find \ If X hasn't reached 0, then we haven't stepped through \ the right number of patterns yet, so jump to card_find \ to increment Y so that it points to the start of the \ next pattern in card_pattern .card_found \ When we get here, we have stepped through the correct \ number of patterns for the card section we want to \ print, and Y will point to the pattern within the \ card_pattern table that corresponds to the section we \ want to print, so we now fetch the pattern from \ card_pattern and print the data in that pattern \ \ The pattern for each section is made up of multiple \ lines of 3 bytes each, with each line consisting of: \ \ * Text column \ * Text row \ * What to print (i.e. a label or ship data) LDA card_pattern,Y \ The first byte of each 3-byte line in the pattern is STA XC \ the x-coordinate where we should print the text, so \ move the text cursor to the correct column LDA card_pattern+1,Y \ The second byte of each 3-byte line in the pattern STA YC \ is the y-coordinate where we should print the text, so \ move the text cursor to the correct row LDA card_pattern+2,Y \ The third byte of each 3-byte line in the pattern is \ either a text token to print for the label (if it's \ non-zero) or it denotes that we should print the \ relevant ship data (if it's zero), so fetch the value \ into A BEQ card_details \ If A = 0 then we should print the relevant ship data, \ so jump to card_details to do just that JSR write_msg3 \ Otherwise this is a label, so print the text token in \ A, which prints the label in the right place INY \ We now need to fetch the next line of the pattern, so INY \ we increment Y by 3 to step to the next 3-byte line of INY \ pattern data BNE card_found \ Loop back to card_found to move onto the next line in \ the pattern (the BNE is effectively a JMP as Y is \ never zero) .card_details \ If we get here, then we have printed all the labels in \ the pattern, and it's time to print the ship data, \ which is at V(1 0) (the first time we get here, V(1 0) \ points to the start of the ship data, and as we loop \ through each bit of data, we update V(1 0) so that it \ always points to the next bit of data to print) JSR MT2 \ Switch to Sentence Case when printing extended tokens LDY #0 \ We now loop through each character or token in the \ ship data, which is stored as a recursive token, so \ set a counter in Y for each character or token in the \ ship data (we start this at 0 and increment it \ straight away, as the first byte in the ship data at \ V(1 0) is the section number, rather than the data \ itself .card_loop INY \ Increment the character counter to point to the next \ character or token in the ship data LDA (V),Y \ Set A to the next character or token to print BEQ card_end \ If A = 0 then we have reached the end of this bit of \ ship data, so jump to card_end to move onto the next \ one BMI card_msg \ If A > 127 then this is a recursive token, so jump to \ card_msg to print it CMP #32 \ If A < 32 then this is a jump token, so jump to BCC card_macro \ card_macro to print it JSR DTS \ Otherwise this is a character rather than a token, so \ call DTS to print it in the correct case JMP card_loop \ Jump back to card_loop to print the next token in the \ ship data .card_macro JSR DT3 \ Call DT3 to print the jump token given in A JMP card_loop \ Jump back to card_loop to print the next token in the \ ship data .card_msg CMP #215 \ If A >= 215, then this is a two-letter token, so jump BCS card_pairs \ to card_pairs to print it AND #%01111111 \ This is a recursive token and A is in the range 128 to \ 214, so clear bit 7 to reduce it to the range 0 to 86, \ which corresponds to tokens in the msg_3 table (as we \ set bit 7 when inserting msg_3 tokens into the ship \ data with the CTOK macro) JSR write_msg3 \ Print the extended token in A JMP card_loop \ Jump back to card_loop to print the next token in the \ ship data .card_pairs JSR msg_pairs \ Print the extended two-letter token in A JMP card_loop \ Jump back to card_loop to print the next token in the \ ship data .card_end \ We have now printed this bit of ship data and the last \ character we printed was at V(1 0) + Y, so we now \ update V(1 0) so that it points to the first byte of \ the next bit of ship data, by doing this: \ \ V(1 0) = V(1 0) + Y + 1 TYA \ First we add the low bytes, setting the C flag to add SEC \ an extra 1 ADC V STA V BCC card_repeat \ If the above addition didn't overflow, we are done, so \ loop back to card_repeat to move onto the next bit of \ ship data INC V+1 \ The addition overflowed, so increment the high byte, \ as V(1 0) just passed a page boundary BCS card_repeat \ Loop back to card_repeat to move onto the next bit of \ ship data (this BCS is effectively a JMP as we passed \ through the BCC above) .quit_card RTS \ Return from the subroutine