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Practical Memory Move Routines by Bruce Clark
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Here are some reasonably fast general-purpose routines for moving blocks of memory. You simply specify the address to move from, the address to move to, and the size of the block. When SIZE is zero, no bytes are moved. SIZEL and SIZEH do not need to be consecutive memory locations, or even on the zero page for that matter. These routines only take one additional cycle if SIZEL is not on the zero page. Likewise, they only take one additional cycle if SIZEH is not on the zero page. Note that this adds only to the total number of cycles, not to the number of cycles per byte, since neither SIZEL nor SIZEH is inside a loop anywhere.

These routines are intended to be both flexible and practical, without being excessively lengthy or excessively slow. To that end, they can be placed in ROM or in RAM.

There are three routines moving memory upward (i.e. to a higher address), each of which is tailored to a slightly different set of input parameters. 

; Move memory down
;
; FROM = source start address
;   TO = destination start address
; SIZE = number of bytes to move
;
MOVEDOWN LDY #0
         LDX SIZEH
         BEQ MD2
MD1      LDA (FROM),Y ; move a page at a time
         STA (TO),Y
         INY
         BNE MD1
         INC FROM+1
         INC TO+1
         DEX
         BNE MD1
MD2      LDX SIZEL
         BEQ MD4
MD3      LDA (FROM),Y ; move the remaining bytes
         STA (TO),Y
         INY
         DEX
         BNE MD3
MD4      RTS

; Move memory up
;
; FROM = source start address
;   TO = destination start address
; SIZE = number of bytes to move
;
MOVEUP   LDX SIZEH    ; the last byte must be moved first
         CLC          ; start at the final pages of FROM and TO
         TXA
         ADC FROM+1
         STA FROM+1
         CLC
         TXA
         ADC TO+1
         STA TO+1
         INX          ; allows the use of BNE after the DEX below
         LDY SIZEL
         BEQ MU3
         DEY          ; move bytes on the last page first
         BEQ MU2
MU1      LDA (FROM),Y
         STA (TO),Y
         DEY
         BNE MU1
MU2      LDA (FROM),Y ; handle Y = 0 separately
         STA (TO),Y
MU3      DEY
         DEC FROM+1   ; move the next page (if any)
         DEC TO+1
         DEX
         BNE MU1
         RTS

; Move memory up
;
; FROM = 1 + source end address
; TO   = 1 + destination end address
; SIZE = number of bytes to move
;
MOVEUP   LDY #$FF
         LDX SIZEH
         BEQ MU3
MU1      DEC FROM+1
         DEC TO+1
MU2      LDA (FROM),Y ; move a page at a time
         STA (TO),Y
         DEY
         BNE MU2
         LDA (FROM),Y ; handle Y = 0 separately
         STA (TO),Y
         DEY
         DEX
         BNE MU1
MU3      LDX SIZEL
         BEQ MU5
         DEC FROM+1
         DEC TO+1
MU4      LDA (FROM),Y ; move the remaining bytes
         STA (TO),Y
         DEY
         DEX
         BNE MU4
MU5      RTS

; Move memory up
;
; FROM = source end address
; TO   = destination end address
; SIZE = number of bytes to move
;
MOVEUP   LDY #0
         LDX SIZEH
         BEQ MU3
MU1      LDA (FROM),Y ; handle Y = 0 separately
         STA (TO),Y
         DEY
         DEC FROM+1
         DEC TO+1
MU2      LDA (FROM),Y ; move a page at a time
         STA (TO),Y
         DEY
         BNE MU2
         DEX
         BNE MU1
MU3      LDX SIZEL
         BEQ MU5
         LDA (FROM),Y ; handle Y = 0 separately
         STA (TO),Y
         DEY
         DEX
         BEQ MU5
         DEC FROM+1
         DEC TO+1
MU4      LDA (FROM),Y ; move the remaining bytes
         STA (TO),Y
         DEY
         DEX
         BNE MU4
MU5      RTS
Even more speed can be gained by using self-modifying code, i.e. replacing the (ZeroPage),Y addressing mode with the Absolute,Y addressing mode. This will take 2 fewer cycles per byte. There will be some additional cycles from the added instructions that self-modify the code, but the self-modification occurs only once, and therefore adds these cycles to total number of cycles, rather than the number of cycles per byte moved. As always, the instructions that are self-modified can't be located in ROM.

Last page update: April 3, 2004.