Memory Banks

BANK SWAP is commonly used in conjunction with Objects, Icons and music banks. For example, it can be used to instantly flick between the images in an Icon bank and an Object bank, like this:

X> Load "Objects.Abk" : Rem Please use your own filename
   Load "Icons.Abk" : Rem Select appropriate filename
   Bank Swap 1,2 : Rem Banks 1 and 2 normally used for Sprites and Icons

Another possibility is to store several different music banks in memory, and swap them as required.

Listing banks on the screen

LIST BANK
instruction: list all current banks in memory
List Bank

The LIST BANK instruction is used to provide a complete list of all the banks that are available from the current program. Information about the banks is listed in the following order:

• The bank number, ranging from 1 to 65536
• A single letter indicating the type of bank, with "F" for Fast or "C" indicating Chip Ram.
• The name of the bank, held in a string of eight characters. Please note that Object banks are identified with the letters "Sprite", even though the same images can be used equally well for Sprites or Bobs.
• The address of the start of the bank in memory, using hexadecimal notation.
• The length of the bank in normal decimal format. In the case of "Sprite" or "Icon" banks, the number of images in the bank will be given instead.

LIST BANK will result in the following sort of report appearing on the screen:

1-C- SpritesS:C61298            L:0000005
3-C- Music  S:C60E80            L:0001000
6-F- Work   S:100000            L:0010000

Memory bank functions
AMOS Professional provides a full range of memory bank functions, which are used to provide information about the status of available banks.

LENGTH
function: return the length of a memory bank
length=Length(bank number)

The LENGTH function is used to find the size of the bank whose number is specified in brackets. Normally, this is measured in bytes, but if the bank contains Objects or Icon data, the number of images in that bank will be given.