Information Presentation - Nintendo Ultra64 Programmer's Manual

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Information Presentation

Mastery of the information presented in this document will occur slowly, as
the information is both voluminous and of tremendous breadth. Some
concepts, such as the hardware architecture of the RSP and the microcode
assembly language, are of course thoroughly intertwined; discussion of one
is impossible without the other.
In order to present this material clearly, we have divided it up into the
following chapters. Each chapter presents its specific topic in detail, usually
assuming information contained in other chapters as background. We have
attempted to present the information in a logical, top-down fashion, with
liberal cross-references to assist the reader.
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Heinrich, J., "MIPS R4000 Microprocessor User's Manual",
Revision 1.0
borrows much from the R4000 ISA; the reader is referred to the
"MIPS R4000 Microprocessor User's Manual"
information.
Application-specific information is not presented. "How to Write
Graphics Microcode for the RSP" or "How to Write Audio
Microcode for the RSP" are topics worthy of a book themselves,
and are not discussed here.
How to use the programming tools. There are detailed man pages
for each tool used during RSP software development. Although all
of these tools are mentioned in this document (and explained
briefly), the reader is referred to documentation for individual tools
for more information.
Certain examples and advanced topics refer to higher-level Ultra64
features or RCP operations (operating system, graphics, audio,
etc.). These things are explained in other documents; a thorough
background knowledge of the Ultra64 is assumed in this document.
Chapter 1, "Introduction," is this chapter. It describes the
document itself, and briefly illuminates the RSP development
environment.
Prentice Hall Publishing, 1993, ISBN 0-13-1-5925-4.
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