Sharp Pocket Computer 1360 - Competence Center
aldweb's free programs - TOOLBOX
What is TOOLBOX ?
TOOLBOX is a set of 3 tools to get into the "heart" of your Sharp PC-1360. It can scan all memory bytes from address &0000 to &FFFF. Its only limitation in the current version is that it can only scan the first of the 4 External ROM Banks (please refer to my Web site and the PC-1360 memory map).
- The first tool is an unassembler that will give you access to understanding Machine Language routines by converting the given bytes to Machine Language opcodes.
- The second tool is an ASCII / Decimal viewer to find out tables of characters, etc...
- The third tool is a byte hunter that will scan the memory looking for the given sequence of up to 4 bytes.
Download TOOLBOX (7 Kb)How to install TOOLBOX ?
TOOLBOX includes a Machine Language routine to get the addresses that the standard Basic PEEK function will not return. Indeed PEEK will only return the bytes value for the addresses ranging in the RAM. For the other addresses PEEK will only return int(address/256) as a result. For the ROM, only the Machine Language DATA function will give a result.
- So, you will have to find a space in memory to put TOOLBOX's Machine Language routine. I highly recommand you to use my trick that will move Basic's memory area and reserve some memory space for Machine Language routines (please refer to my Web site where I give all informations to set this feature).
- Once you have done the first point, you will have to give an address of where to put the Machine Language routine used by TOOLBOX. This is done in line 50 of the Basic program. Set the A variable to the given address.
How to use TOOLBOX ?
The first time when you launch TOOLBOX, you need to RUN it. Then, unless you CLEAR the variables, the DEF A shortcut will give you access to the menu hereunder :
Press 1, 2, 3 or 4 according to your choice, and follow the next questions that TOOLBOX will ask you to answer in order to scan the memory. In each of the 3 tools, pressing the CLS key will bring you back to the head menu of the given tool, pressing MODE will bring you back to the main menu. All other keys will bring the next line of information that will be showed on the screen of the Sharp PC-1360.
In the following example, we pressed the 1 key to select the Unassembler tool. Then the program asked for the first address to unassemble and we answered 0 being the first address of the system (in the Internal ROM). The system then unassembled the Machine Language instruction starting at the 0 address. Pressing any key but CLS or MODE will then show the next instruction.
What is currently missing in TOOLBOX ?
The main feature that I believe is lacking in TOOLBOX at the moment is that TOOLBOX cannot send data through the serial interface or to a tape. This is no big deal to do, I just did not take the time to do it yet. If you upgrade this program, adding this or any other feature, I would really appreciate to get a copy of the modified program.