mii_emu/docs/Compiling.md

Top down view

Here how it's supposed to work!

The emulator was made to be portable on most things. It's plain C compiled with -Wextras, I run in regularly thru the static analyser, and I regulartly check it with valgrind. So it's pretty clean.

It evolved from the original mess, and I organized it into bits which would make porting it to other platform easier.

How to I compile it and run it?

• You need a C compiler, make, and a few libraries:
  • libasound2-dev [ optional, for audio ]
  • libgl-dev
  • libglu-dev
  • libx11-dev
• Many of them will probably be installed already if you regulargly compile stuff.
• Then just type make and it should compile.
• To run it, just type build-x86_64-linux-gnu/bin/mii_emu and it should start.

Development

• This is the first project I made using vscode as my main IDE; I used Eclipse for many years as the indexer was pretty much unbeatable (still is).
• To support vscode I needed some tooling to create the 'compile_commands.json' file, which is used by the C/C++ extension to provide intellisense. So to create that file, you use make lsp and it will create the file in the project directory.
• Another thing vscode sucks at is Makefiles (despite the extension, building is painful and next to useless). So there is a target called make watch that you can run in a separate terminal to auto-build as soon as you save any files in vscode. That is when you realize for example that vscode re-save the file anytime you press control-S, regardless of wether the file has changed or not. So you end up with a lot of unnecessary builds. I'm sure there is a way to fix that, but I haven't found it yet.

Code Style

I have pretty consistent code style across my projects.

• tabs=4. Just because.
• 80 columns lines or so. I don't like to scroll horizontally and I like splitting my screen vertically. (also see, tabs=4!).
• K&R style exclusively. None of that Allman/GNU horribleness.
• GNU99 Dialect.
• No Yoda, we are no longer in 1975. if (0 == foo) is just stupid.
• I use !! to convert to 1 or zero from an expression. I call it the 'normalisation operator'. it is not commonly seen, apart from places like the Linux kernel.
• I use minipt.h for protothreads. I like protothreads, and when you are aware of their limitations, they are a great tool. They are used for the video rendering, the no-slot-clock etc.

What needs doing?

• I'm sure there are bugs. I haven't tested it on a lot of hardware, and apart from quite a few games and a few known productivity app, it had had very little extensive testing. So testing!
• In the code there are a few bits which needs fixing
  • The floppy driver still has issues writing, most notably it fails to 'bit copy' stuff when using Copy II plus. It's a timing issue, but I haven't found it yet.