WIP: 16C firmware hack for more memory

[Garry Lancaster]

(03-02-2023 04:52 AM)brouhaha Wrote:  My memory expansion microcode for the 16C is now working on the DM16L, with the microcode inserted into the SwissMicros DM16_32 firmware.

Nice progress. Was it easy to find the ROM image within the DM firmware?

Quote:I was pleased to see that the SwissMicros serial console "s" command to dump memory actually works, so apparently that dumps all non-zero hardware registers from 0x00 through 0xff. Presumably the "l" command will support those as well, but I haven't yet tried it.

That's good. The dump/restore facility is very useful, and will be more important with a larger memory space for programs.

Quote:I've been thinking about expandnig the 15C and 16C memory even further, but that would probably NOT work with the SwissMicros firmware, because I doubt that SwissMicros supports RAM above 0xff. (To be fair, I haven't actually tried.). I'd have to write my own ARM code, which I've been considering doing anyhow, but if I did that I probably wouldn't support multiple fonts, the RTC, and other nifty features that SwissMicros provides.

Seems to make more sense to leverage the facilities the SwissMicros firmware provides rather than rolling your own. 1547 available bytes seems plenty for 16C usage, although maybe 15C users are more demanding.