Wikifang:Network Translation Patchsite/BugVM

Bugsite contains a virtual machine which executes all (non-IRQ) game logic. It is a stack-based virtual machine with a large number of opcodes specific to the game.

Data and Link Stacks

Two stacks are managed by the VM: a link stack and a data stack. The link stack ($C100) supports up to $3F call frames of 4 bytes each, which is manipulated entirely by the call, jump-far, and return opcodes. The data stack ($C200) supports up to $55 data items of 3 bytes each. Each data item consists of a little-endian 16-bit word followed by a tag byte, which specifies if it's...

• $3D an immediate value
• $1D a word index into the indirect memory array
• $1E a bit index into the predicate array

Data items are pushed onto the stack as immediate values and then cast to indirect or predicate offsets as necessary. Both stacks grow upwards from their base address.

Indirect & Predicate Memory

BugVM allows direct access (read and write) to indirect and predicate memory. Indirect memory covers WRAM3:$C400 to WRAM3:$D7FF, and is indexed using word offsets. Predicate memory covers WRAM3:$D800 to WRAM3:$DFFF and is indexed as a massive bitfield.

Indirect and predicate memory can be saved to and loaded from SRAM using opcodes $47 and $48, along with additional data in SRAM.

Known Indirect Memory Slots

Index	WRAM Addr.	Name	Purpose
$12	$C424	W_BugVM_StringArena	Stores the current location of the end of the string-builder arena, used by the DB opcode to store embedded string data.

Linkage Directory

Code and graphical resources exist entirely within sections, which can be referred to by their 16-bit linkage identifier. The linkage identifier indexes a directory starting from $A:$4000, with $800 8-byte directory entries per bank. In practice, while the directory could extend all the way across 8 banks, only 2 are used for the directory. (Effectively, linkages above $1000 are invalid and will horribly crash the game.) Directory entries appear to be stored in order of where their data is stored in ROM.

Each directory index contains a bank index, byte offset into that bank (0 means a pointer of $4000), and total size; with at least graphical resource loads capable of handling sections that span multiple banks. The remaining three bytes are padding and are always zero. There appear to be about 36 unused directory entries from linkage $FDC all pointing to $7F:$70FF with a size of zero.

Initial State

Execution of BugVM always starts from the beginning of linkage $0. Indirect and predicate memory is set to $0 upon game initialization.

Instruction Set

BugVM takes instructions as 8-bit opcodes which can optionally accept additional parameters. Most opcodes take arguments from the stack, rather than from the instruction stream. Native implementations for a particular opcode are referenced from the opcode table at $3E00, reproduced below:

	x0	x1	x2	x3	x4	x5	x6	x7	x8	x9	xA	xB	xC	xD	xE	xF
0x	NOP $5E9	NOP $5E9	NOP $5E9	??? $671	NOP $5E9	NOP $5E9	STR $68C	SUML $6C0	ANDL $6CA	OR $6D7	XOR $6E2	AND $6ED	CMP_EQ $6F8	CMP_NEQ $705	CMP_LT $712	CMP_LEQ $723
1x	CMP_GT $752	CMP_GEQ $763	??? $772	SLA $784	SUB $796	ADD $7A1	MOD $7A9	DIV $7C3	MUL $7ED	NOP_19 $80B	NOP_1A $80C	NOP_1B $80D	NOP_1C $80E	INDIR $80F	PRED $820	NOP $5E9
2x	NOP $5E9	NOP $5E9	NOP $5E9	NOP $5E9	NOP $5E9	NOP $5E9	NOP $5E9	NOP $5E9	NOP $5E9	NOP $5E9	NOP $5E9	NOP $5E9	POPALL $831	NOP $5E9	NOP $5E9	NOP_2F $835
3x	NOP_30 $836	NOP_31 $837	NOP_32 $838	NOP_33 $839	NOP_34 $83A	NOP_35 $87B	NPREF $87C	JMPT $887	JMP $8AC	RET $8BB	NOP_3A $8DB	NOP_3B $8DC	NOP_3C $8DD	IMMED $8DE	DB $941	JAL $8F0
4x
5x
6x
7x
8x
9x
Ax
Bx
Cx
Dx
Ex
Fx

Boolean Logic & Comparison Operators

As convention for this table we treat zero as boolean TRUE and one as boolean FALSE. Other non-zero values are treated as FALSE, but boolean opcodes will not return nonstandard values.

Opcode	Encoding(s)	Native Impl.	Operand Args	Stack Args	Description
SUML (SUM Logical)	$07	$6C0	None	arg1, arg2 (TOP) -> bool (TOP)	Add arg1 and arg2. Push TRUE if result is zero, FALSE if non-zero.
ANDL (AND Logical)	$08	$6CA	None	arg1, arg2 (TOP) -> bool (TOP)	Bitwise-AND arg1 and arg2. Push TRUE if result is zero, FALSE if non-zero.
CMP_EQ (CoMParison EQual)	$0C	$6F8	None	arg1, arg2 (TOP) -> bool (TOP)	Compare arg1 and arg2. Push TRUE if both arguments are equal, FALSE otherwise.
CMP_NEQ (CoMParison Not EQual)	$0D	$705	None	arg1, arg2 (TOP) -> bool (TOP)	Compare arg1 and arg2. Push TRUE if both arguments are not equal, FALSE otherwise.
CMP_LT (CoMParison Less Than)	$0E	$712	None	arg1, arg2 (TOP) -> bool (TOP)	Compare arg1 and arg2. Push TRUE if arg1 is less than arg2, FALSE otherwise.
CMP_LEQ (CoMParison Less or EQual)	$0F	$723	None	arg1, arg2 (TOP) -> bool (TOP)	Compare arg1 and arg2. Push TRUE if arg1 is less than or equal to arg2, FALSE otherwise.
CMP_GT (CoMParison Greater Than)	$10	$752	None	arg1, arg2 (TOP) -> bool (TOP)	Compare arg1 and arg2. Push TRUE if arg1 is greater than arg2, FALSE otherwise.
CMP_GEQ (CoMParison Greater or EQual)	$11	$763	None	arg1, arg2 (TOP) -> bool (TOP)	Compare arg1 and arg2. Push TRUE if arg1 is greater than or equal to arg2, FALSE otherwise.

Bitwise logic

Opcode	Encoding(s)	Native Impl.	Operand Args	Stack Args	Description
OR (bitwise OR)	$09	$6D7	None	arg1, arg2 (TOP) -> value (TOP)	Bitwise-OR arg1 and arg2 as the return value.
XOR (bitwise eXclusive OR)	$0A	$6E2	None	arg1, arg2 (TOP) -> value (TOP)	Bitwise-XOR arg1 and arg2 as the return value.
AND (bitwise AND)	$0B	$6ED	None	arg1, arg2 (TOP) -> value (TOP)	Bitwise-AND arg1 and arg2 as the return value.
SLA (Shift-Left Arithmetic)	$13	$784	None	bits, shift (TOP) -> value (TOP)	Shift bits left, shift times, while inserting zero bits, to produce value.

Arithmetic

Opcode	Encoding(s)	Native Impl.	Operand Args	Stack Args	Description
SUB (SUBtraction)	$14	$796	None	minuend, subtrahend (TOP) -> difference (TOP)	Subtract subtrahend from minuend to produce difference.
ADD (ADDition)	$15	$7A1	None	addend1, addend2 (TOP) -> sum (TOP)	Add addend1 to addend2 to produce sum.
MOD (MODulo)	$16	$7A9	None	dividend, divisor (TOP) -> remainder (TOP)	Integer-divide dividend by divisor and return only the remainder.
DIV (DIVide)	$17	$7C3	None	dividend, divisor (TOP) -> quotient (TOP)	Integer-divide dividend by divisor and return only the quotient.
MUL (MULtiply)	$18	$7ED	None	multiplicand, multiplier (TOP) -> product (TOP)	Multiply multiplicand by multiplier to produce the product.

Memory & Stack Manipulation

Opcode	Encoding(s)	Native Impl.	Operand Args	Stack Args	Description
STR (SToRe)	$06	$68C	None	&address, value (TOP) -> (TOP)	Store the value at the memory location referenced by &address. The exact memory operations performed depend on the target of *address. If address is an indirect index, the memory location referenced by *address will be set to value. If address is a predicate index, the bit referenced by *address will be set or reset based on if value is zero or non-zero. It is illegal to STR into an immediate value, and doing so will cause the VM to halt operation.
INDIR (INDIRect)	$1D	$80F	None	immed (TOP) -> &address (TOP)	Cast the value immed into an indirect memory index &address.
PRED (PREDicate)	$1E	$820	None	immed (TOP) -> &pred (TOP)	Cast the value immed into a predicate memory index &pred.
POPALL (POP ALL)	$2C	$831	None	anything (TOP) -> (EMPTY)	Empty the stack.
IMMED (IMMEDiate)	$3D	$8DE	immed (16b)	(TOP) -> immed (TOP)	Push immed onto the data stack as an immediate value.
DB (Declare Bytes)	$3E	$941	string (null-terminated)	(TOP) -> straddr (TOP)	Copy null-terminated string data from the instruction stream into the string-building arena referred to by $C424. The address of the newly copied string data will be pushed onto the data stack as an immediate value.

Execution Control

Opcode	Encoding(s)	Native Impl.	Operand Args	Stack Args	Description
JMPT (JuMP if True)	$37	$887	offset (16b)	bool (TOP) -> (TOP)	Jump to a new offset within the current linkage section if bool is TRUE.
JMP (JuMP)	$38	$8AC	offset (16b)	None	Jump to a new offset within the current linkage section.
RET (RETurn)	$39	$8BB	None	None	Return to the previously linked return address.
JAL (Jump And Link)	$3F	$8F0	offset (16b)	None	Jump to a new offset within the current linkage section. Store the offset of the next instruction on the link stack.

NOP and NOP-alikes

BugVM contains a number of opcodes which do nothing, including both a single implementation of a NOP opcode used to fill in blank spots in the table as well as individual implementations which presumably did something in the past.

Opcode	Encoding(s)	Native Impl.	Operand Args	Stack Args	Description
NOP (Null OPeration)	Too many to list	$5E9	None	None	Does nothing.
NOP_19 (Null OPeration)	$19	$80B	None	None	Does nothing.
NOP_1A (Null OPeration)	$1A	$80C	None	None	Does nothing.
NOP_1B (Null OPeration)	$1B	$80D	None	None	Does nothing.
NOP_1C (Null OPeration)	$1C	$80E	None	None	Does nothing.
NOP_2F (Null OPeration)	$2F	$835	None	None	Does nothing.
NOP_30 (Null OPeration)	$30	$836	None	None	Does nothing.
NOP_31 (Null OPeration)	$31	$837	None	None	Does nothing.
NOP_32 (Null OPeration)	$32	$838	None	None	Does nothing.
NOP_33 (Null OPeration)	$33	$839	None	None	Does nothing.
NOP_34 (Null OPeration)	$34	$83A	None	None	Does nothing.
NOP_35 (Null OPeration)	$35	$87B	None	None	Does nothing.
NPREF (Null PREFix)	$36	$87C	opcode, ???	None	Executes the next opcode as normal. This would appear to be just another NOP, but it's native implementation actually loads and executes the next byte as an opcode. Hence, it works like a prefix byte that does nothing. Perhaps in a previous revision of the game, NPREF had a use.
NOP_3A (Null OPeration)	$3A	$8DB	None	None	Does nothing.
NOP_3B (Null OPeration)	$3B	$8DC	None	None	Does nothing.
NOP_3C (Null OPeration)	$3C	$8DB	None	None	Does nothing.