{"id":2381,"date":"2025-03-13T02:20:43","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T00:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/?page_id=2381"},"modified":"2025-08-22T12:01:55","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T10:01:55","slug":"basic-cpc-integration","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/basic-cpc-integration\/","title":{"rendered":"CPC Basic integration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
This example has been superseded by the\u00a0interruption player<\/a> (one call and the music plays in the background!), so you should probably use it instead.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The players can all be called from assembler or C. However, some of us are still developing games on our good old Basic! Here is a little walkthrough on how to do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a prerequisite, please download Rasm<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The example uses the AKG player, but it will work for all the other ones. Contrary to assembler, Basic requires a few securities, else it will crash, so we need to create a small assembler code to “secure” the calls to the players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few steps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the same folder, we will create our “secure” asm code. Either copy\/paste the sources\/playerAkg\/testers<\/em>\/Basic_CPC.asm<\/em> program where your music is, or use the code below. Save it as Basic_CPC.asm<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Export your music (as source), let’s called it MyMusic.asm<\/em>. Warning<\/strong>, make sure that the option “encode to address”, at the bottom of each export window, is unchecked<\/strong> (we don’t need to add an ORG to the music source as we directly include it to our own).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Copy the\u00a0PlayerAkg.asm<\/em>\u00a0player in the same folder. It is located in the\u00a0sources\/playerAkg<\/em>\u00a0folder of the AT3 package.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
;Basic_CPC.asm    \n    org #4000\n\n    jp Init   \n    jp Play\n    jp StopMusic\n\nInit:\n    ld hl,Music     ;Initializes the music.\n    ld a,0          ;The subsong number (0 is the first one).\n    call Player + 0\n    ret\n\nPlay:\n   di\n   ex af,af'\n   exx\n        push af  ;Saves a few registers the system needs.\n        push bc\n        push ix\n        push iy\n        call Player + 3   ;Plays the music.\n        pop iy\n        pop ix\n        pop bc\n        pop af\n    ex af,af'\n    exx\n\n    ei\n    ret\n\nStopMusic:\n    di\n    ex af,af'\n    exx\n        push af\n        push bc\n        push ix\n        push iy\n        call Player + 6      ;Stops the music. \n        pop iy\n        pop ix\n        pop bc\n        pop af\n    ex af,af'\n    exx\n\n    ei        \n    ret\n\nPlayer:\n        include \"PlayerAkg.asm\"         ;The player. Loads the one you want (AKG, AKM, Lightweight, AKY).\n\nMusic:  \n        include \"MyMusic.asm\"    ;The music.<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Don’t be scared if you don’t understand assembler! Let’s compile this into binary:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
rasm Basic_CPC.asm -o playmus<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
This will create a playmus.bin<\/em> file, which contains the “secure” calls to the player, the player itself and the music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now load this file into Basic. There are many possibilities to do so:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • If you’re using Winape, you can inject it directly in memory (in the debugger, right click on the memory and load the file in #4000).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Use ManageDsk by Demoniak to create a DSK and adds the file in it (as a binary, in #4000).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • For automated generation, some better tools exist, I let you search for them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
    Load the file in Basic (unless you’ve injected it):<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    memory &3fff\nload\"playmus.bin\",&4000<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    Now let’s play!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    10 call &4000   'initialize the music.\n20 call &bd19:call &4003   'plays one frame of the music, at 50hz.\n30 if inkey(47)<>0 then 20  'loops as long as space is not pressed.\n40 call &4006   'stops the music.\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    That’s it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    I chose the &4000 address, but you can change it (change the ORG in the source, as well as all the CALLs in the Basic example, and of course the LOAD address). Don’t forget to set the memory<\/em> command one byte before, so that the Basic program doesn’t overwrite the binary (memory &1234<\/em> if you load the music in &1235 for example). The address should be from &1000 to &9000, don’t go too high! Basic will prevent you from doing so anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Finally, it is possible to use interruptions in Basic to play the music while doing something else. If you need such facilities, please let me know and I’ll create another example.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
    This example has been superseded by the\u00a0interruption player (one call and the music plays in the background!), so you should probably use […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":210,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2381","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2381"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2395,"href":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2381\/revisions\/2395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}