Getting Started

Getting Powered Up

Powering your F256K

The F256K is powered via a standard 2.5mm DC Connector, which takes a centre-positive 12V 2A capable Power Supply.

This type of power supply is quite common. Example 12V 2A capable power supply (#)

(#) This specific power supply has not been verified (by the author) for use with the F256K. Please update this page with verified options!

Powering your F256Jr

The F256Jr is supplied as a Mini-ITX form factor mainboard, with a standard 24 pin ATX power supply connector for power connectivity.

Since the F256Jr needs relatively little power, compared to a mini-ATX PC, a popular DC 12V 24pin Pico ATX PSU works well and is a compact solution.

• Pico PSU - You power the Pico PSU via a 12V DC center-positive Power Supply source.
• 12V DC center-positive A/C Adapter - Commonly used to power the Pico PSU.

Getting programs onto the F256

SD Card

Both the F256K and F256JR have an SD card slot. The device software to read the SD card is a bit touchy (it's inherited from the Commander X16 project) and doesn't work with all SD cards

• Cards should support the V2 protocol (HC or XC); older cards that only support the V1 protocol (typically 2GB or less) won't work. By contrast, the kernels for the C256 machines generally only work with V1 cards. Note that, in both cases, this is a software limitation -- all of the Foenix machines are electrically capable of using both kinds of cards.
• Cards *MUST* be formatted FAT32 -- **NOT: FAT, FAT12, FAT16, or exFAT**. Note that while MacOS will read a FAT32 formatted card, the included disk utility won't format FAT32. Windows 10/11 works fine, but make sure to force FAT32 (or use the command line: format /FS:FAT32 H:)
• Some folks have had luck formatting cards with the Official SD Association formatter for Windows.

Demos Archive

• Download the most recent demos archive and expand it to the root of the flash card.

Debug USB port

• This is what most developers use as it's the most convenient. Connect the debug USB port to your PC or Mac

• You can use:
  • FoenixMgr - works on Windows, Mac, Linux
    • A Python script to manage the Foenix series of retro style computers through their USB debug ports. This tool allows uploading files of various formats to system RAM, and displaying memory through various means.

• • FoenixIDE (Windows only)
    • Development and Debugging Suite for the C256 Foenix Family of Computers.

wget

If you have the wifi configured, you can use wget to pull programs and data right off the web!

SuperBASIC

The machine boots to SuperBASIC. SuperBASIC is inspired by BBC BASIC but offers quite a bit more.

• Read the SuperBASIC Reference Manual.

• Watch EMWhite's excellent intro series on Youtube:
  • Full Playlist here: EMWhite's Intro Series - Full Playlist.
  • Part 1 can be viewed here:

To get started, you can type in a sample program at the command prompt:

10 for i=1 to 5
20 print "Hello world"
30 next
run

SuperBASIC is similar to CBM (Microsoft) BASIC but has some differences. For example, note in the sample above it's just next not next i.

The first 15 or so pages of the SuperBASIC Reference Manual are quite instructive.

SuperBASIC is actually much more powerful and supports structured programming (procedures, blocks etc.)

dir - Run this to display directory of SD card

Loading & running programs off of the SD card is similarly easy:

load "JrWordl.bas"
run

Similar to the C64, you can save time in loading programs from the dir listing by using your cursor keys to go up to the entry, typing load " (insert mode is active by default) etc. You can use CTRL+E to jump to the end of the line and use CTRL+K to delete any text from the cursor to the end of the line. Correctly place the closing " and hit ENTER.

CTRL+C acts as a "break" command and stops any running SuperBASIC program or LIST command.

Read built-in help/reference:

/help : But NOTE, this erases BASIC memory! Use Backspace key to go back in menus and to exit.

Explore the included demo SuperBASIC programs:

Program	Notes	Source
JrWordl.bas	Wordle game, guess 5 letter word
mandel.bas	Draws Mandlebrot set in graphics mode, takes between 2 and 3 hours	@Mu0n
rpg-demo.bas	UI sample that shows Zelda like RPG game. Control the character with an Atari-joystick connected to JoyPort1	@econtrerasd
Problematic_Code.bas	Displays scrolling starfield
noelrl.bas	Simple integer BASIC bench mark from Noel's retro lab. Completes < 3.5 seconds, compares very favourably to other retro systems!	Youtube
dance.bas	Animates sprite of dancer	@Mu0n
luna.bas	Displays simple scene
blink.bas	Blinks drive access light	@Mu0n
piano.bas	Play some notes with the PSG	@Mu0n

Memory Map under BASIC

Caption text

Initial Address	End Address	Description	Bytes
$0000	-	MMU Control Register	1
$0001	-	I/O Control Register	1
$0002	$0007	Free Zero Page Addresses	6
$0008	$000F	MMU Control Addresses	8
$0010	$002F	Free Zero Page Addresses	32
$0030	$003F	Used Zero Page Addresses for (xx),Y Addressing	16
$0040	$0041	Current Address on screen of start of line	2
$0042	$004F	Avaliable Zero Page Addresses	14
$0050	$00AF	Number / Floating Point Stack for 16 numbers	96
$00B0	$00EF	Available Zero Page	64
$00F0	$00FF	Kernel Arguments in Zero Page	16
$0100	$01FF	Hardware Stack of 6502	256
$0200	$0228	Basic mini-Kernel memory	40
$0229	$03FF	Also used by Sound Command in BASIC	470
$0400	$041F	Control Storage first 8 bytes control syntax highlighting	32
$0420	$0814	Memory Storage	1012
$0814	$0FFF	Available Low Memory	2028
$1000	$1FFF	SuperBASIC Identifier Tables, allocated memory, string vars, stack	4kb
$2000	$77FF	SuperBASIC Program Tokenized Code (grows Upward)	22kb
$7800	$7FFF	Top 2k of SuperBASIC Program tokenize code or used for ML routines in low memory	2kb
$8000	$BFFF	SUPERBASIC CODE	16kb
$C000	$DFFF	I/O Memory Pages / Underlying Kernel Code (Selectable with I/O control Register)	8kb
$E000	$FFEF	KERNEL CODE	8176
$FFF0	$FFFF	Reset Vectors and NMI / IRQ / BRK Vectors	16
$01:0000	$02:2BFF	Default Memory used by BASIC bitmap graphics	75kb
$02:2C00	$02:7FFF	Available High Memory	21kb
$02:8000	$02:F000	Used for BASIC Cross Development w/PC or MAC	32k
$03:0000	$03:7FFF	Used for Sprite Data in BASIC	32kb
$03:8000	$03:FFFF	Unless not running from Flash, Used for ROM Images	32k
$04:0000	$07:DFFF	Available High Memory	248kb
$07:E000	$07:FFFF	Being considered to be Reserved for Environmental Variables	8Kb
$10:0000	$13:FFFF	Cartridge Expanded Memory (addresable only by CPU)	256kb
$14:0000	$1F:FFFF	Future Expansions?	768kb

Native Code

• Binary programs for the F256 line are typically distributed as pgx or pgz files (see File Formats, they are like the prg format in the C64 ecosystem).

• SuperBASIC: Slash (/) command will execute the named flash resident program, such as /dos or /help (SuperBASIC reference).

• PGZ/X files can be run from SuperBASIC with /- program.pgz, and from DOS with - program.pgz

• The - is also referred to as pexec, and is a chainloader that understands pgx and pgz formats, so /- program.pgz first hands over control to pexec which then loads the program and hands over control.

• You will typically need to reset the machine to get back to SuperBASIC.

• Switch to DOS with /dos and back into BASIC once there with basic. help display a list of available DOS commands.

Try the included native demo programs:

Program	Notes
wrtn0825-vcf.pgz	Which Rules the Night (game)	@beethead
matchit0825-vcf.pgz	Match It (game)	@beethead
balls.pgz	Demonstrates 280 multiplexed sprites	GitHub

More Resources

This Wiki

Explore all of the content of this Wiki, to expand your F256 series knowledge!

Discord

The Foenix Retro Systems Discord is the primary place to get questions answered.

Also, if you resolve your question, and you didn't find the answer here on the Wiki, please consider contributing to the Wiki, for the benefit of others with the same question!

Foenix Retro Systems Newletter

Read back issues here (also a great source for sample programs).

Issues starting at #4 cover the F256 line. Issues 1-3 cover the previous version of the hardware (C256), although there are still many salient points.