Double-buffered displays

I decided to press on with reverse-engineering the level display, with the intention of implementing it on the TRS-80 Model 4 (Z80), before bringing the Coco3 (6809) port up-to-date.

To this end, I have now commented the level display routine; from where it copies and then unpacks the data from the disk buffer, to the famous circular wipe as it renders the level to the display. I should note that I have identified, but not commented, the actual circular wipe routines (although I can tell you it draws a total of 170 concentric circles). I have also completely ignored the Apple II disk routines, as they are completely irrelevant to the port (and not very interesting either).

I did know that Lode Runner utilised both hires pages, and long suspected that this was integral to the circular wipe function. What I didn't know, but have now learned, is that the game itself uses both pages in a form of double-buffering. More specifically, it renders the level onto page 2, that gets copied to page 1 during the circular wipe, and then it subsequently wipes the players and enemies from page 2 so that only the background graphics remain. This scheme allows the 'sprites' to be rendered more efficiently during game-play, without the need to save background data on each sprite update.

As a result, there are actually a set of rendering routines; the first (used for the game status) simply over-writes the page data with the tile, a second which wipes said tile, and a third that OR's the tile onto the background. The first routine has a parameter that specifies which page is to be rendered onto, the latter work implicitly with both pages.

It's clear now that the TRS-80 and Coco3 ports will require a second screen buffer. Lode Runner does actually display from page 2 in some instances, but I believe that is restricted to the High Score screen and the level editor (which I may not bother porting), so hopefully I can work around that requirement. It's not an issue on the Coco3, but the TRS-80 will definitely not be able to display from the 2nd page.

I'm now coding the TRS-80 Model 4 level rendering routines. As part of the process I'll need to go back and implement the 2nd screen page; something I avoided up until now. Who knows, maybe I will decide to tackle the circular wipe, given that I'll need to copy the data between pages anyway.