Hardware
Much of this comes from the comments in the MAME emulator.
- invaders.h 0000-07FF
- invaders.g 0800-0FFF
- invaders.f 1000-17FF
- invaders.e 1800-1FFF
Interrupts
The mame/drivers/mw8080bw.c comments have the following information about the interrupts:
The CPU's INT line is asserted via a D flip-flop at E3.
The flip-flop is clocked by the expression (!(64V | !128V) | VBLANK).
According to this, the LO to HI transition happens when the vertical
sync chain is 0x80 and 0xda and VBLANK is 0 and 1, respectively.
These correspond to lines 96 and 224 as displayed.
The interrupt vector is provided by the expression:
0xc7 | (64V << 4) | (!64V << 3), giving 0xcf and 0xd7 for the vectors.
The flip-flop, thus the INT line, is later cleared by the CPU via
one of its memory access control signals.
The value CF is RST 8 and D7 is RST 10.
If I understand this right then the system gets RST 8 when the beam is *near* the middle of the screen and RST 10 when it is at the end (start of VBLANK).
Video
The raster resolution is 256x224 at 60Hz. The monitor is rotated in the cabinet 90 degrees counter-clockwise.
The screens pixels are on/off (1 bit each). 256*224/8 = 7168 (7K) bytes.
Memory Map
- 0000-1FFF 8K ROM
- 2000-23FF 1K RAM
- 2400-3FFF 7K Video RAM
- 4000- RAM mirror
I/O Ports
| 0000pr | INP0 | See below |
| 0001pr | INP1 | See below |
| 0002pr | INP2 | See below |
| 0003pr | SHFT_IN | See below |
| 0002pw | SHFTAMNT | See below |
| 0003pw | SOUND1 | See below |
| 0004pw | SHFT_DATA | See below |
| 0005pw | SOUND2 | See below |
| 0006pw | WATCHDOG | See below |
These ports are mapped into the 8080's I/O address space (not the memory space):
Read 00 INPUTS (Mapped in hardware but never used by the code) 01 INPUTS 02 INPUTS 03 bit shift register read Write 02 shift amount (3 bits) 03 sound bits 04 shift data 05 sound bits 06 watch-dog
Port 07 is also demultiplexed. The schematics say the select signal is wired directly to input-port-0's bit 7. This doesn't make sense.
Dedicated Shift Hardware
The 8080 instruction set does not include opcodes for shifting. An 8-bit pixel image must be shifted into a 16-bit word for the desired bit-position on the screen. Space Invaders adds a hardware shift register to help with the math.
16 bit shift register: f 0 bit xxxxxxxxyyyyyyyy Writing to port 4 shifts x into y, and the new value into x, eg. $0000, write $aa -> $aa00, write $ff -> $ffaa, write $12 -> $12ff, .. Writing to port 2 (bits 0,1,2) sets the offset for the 8 bit result, eg. offset 0: rrrrrrrr result=xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxyyyyyyyy offset 2: rrrrrrrr result=xxxxxxyy xxxxxxxxyyyyyyyy offset 7: rrrrrrrr result=xyyyyyyy xxxxxxxxyyyyyyyy Reading from port 3 returns said result.
Inputs
Port 0 bit 0 DIP4 (Seems to be self-test-request read at power up) bit 1 Always 1 bit 2 Always 1 bit 3 Always 1 bit 4 Fire bit 5 Left bit 6 Right bit 7 ? tied to demux port 7 ? Port 1 bit 0 = CREDIT (1 if deposit) bit 1 = 2P start (1 if pressed) bit 2 = 1P start (1 if pressed) bit 3 = Always 1 bit 4 = 1P shot (1 if pressed) bit 5 = 1P left (1 if pressed) bit 6 = 1P right (1 if pressed) bit 7 = Not connected Port 2 bit 0 = DIP3 00 = 3 ships 10 = 5 ships bit 1 = DIP5 01 = 4 ships 11 = 6 ships bit 2 = Tilt bit 3 = DIP6 0 = extra ship at 1500, 1 = extra ship at 1000 bit 4 = P2 shot (1 if pressed) bit 5 = P2 left (1 if pressed) bit 6 = P2 right (1 if pressed) bit 7 = DIP7 Coin info displayed in demo screen 0=ON Port 3 bit 0-7 Shift register data
Output
Port 2: bit 0,1,2 Shift amount Port 3: (discrete sounds) bit 0=UFO (repeats) SX0 0.raw bit 1=Shot SX1 1.raw bit 2=Flash (player die) SX2 2.raw bit 3=Invader die SX3 3.raw bit 4=Extended play SX4 bit 5= AMP enable SX5 bit 6= NC (not wired) bit 7= NC (not wired) Port 4: (discrete sounds) bit 0-7 shift data (LSB on 1st write, MSB on 2nd) Port 5: bit 0=Fleet movement 1 SX6 4.raw bit 1=Fleet movement 2 SX7 5.raw bit 2=Fleet movement 3 SX8 6.raw bit 3=Fleet movement 4 SX9 7.raw bit 4=UFO Hit SX10 8.raw bit 5= NC (Cocktail mode control ... to flip screen) bit 6= NC (not wired) bit 7= NC (not wired) Port 6: Watchdog ... read or write to reset
Screen Geometry
2400 - 3FFF (1C00 bytes = 256 * 28) 28*8=224. Screen is 256x224 pixels.
The map below shows the raster layout. Take this map and rotate it counter clockwise once. Thus the first byte is lower left. First "row" ends upper left. Last byte is upper right.
2400 2401 2402 .... 241F
01234567 01234567 01234567 .... 01234567
2420 2421 2422 .... 243F
01234567 01234567 01234567 .... 01234567
. .
. .
. .
. .
3FE0 3FE1 3FE2 .... 3FFF
01234567 01234567 01234567 .... 01234567