Building minivmac outside minivmac

About Mini vMac and all other 68k emulators, including SoftMac, Executor, and MESS.

Moderators: Cat_7, Ronald P. Regensburg

Post Reply
atreyu.ac
Student Driver
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2015 10:58 am

Building minivmac outside minivmac

Post by atreyu.ac »

Hi,

With the purpose of getting this awesome piece of software ported from the old, unmantained and bit-rottend SDL1.x to the new, hardware-accererated(on the Raspberry Pi) SDL2, I am trying to build the thing outside itself. As you know, the building process that's on the official minivmac page involves building inside the emulator itself, but it uses GCC after all so it should be possible to somehow build outside, with a normal make/gcc/Makefile process as with any other Linux program.

So, has anybody done this? It's VERY uncomfortable to hack new code if I have to extrac, convert, code, covert, then boot the emulator, build...
User avatar
adespoton
Forum All-Star
Posts: 4227
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2009 5:11 am
Location: Emaculation.com
Contact:

Re: Building minivmac outside minivmac

Post by adespoton »

Gryphel has actually built the emulator as part of the development environment; you're going to be missing a few things if you attempt to build it manually outside the environment.

That said, he's probably also the only person to attempt what you're currently trying. That said, he's probably also the person to ask regarding SDL2 integration.
atreyu.ac
Student Driver
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2015 10:58 am

Re: Building minivmac outside minivmac

Post by atreyu.ac »

Thanks for your response, adespoton. I already asked him but didn't get a reply so I deduced he wasn't interested. That's why I was goingo to give it a try myself.
User avatar
gryphel
Nice Guy
Posts: 106
Joined: Sat Nov 17, 2007 6:46 pm

Re: Building minivmac outside minivmac

Post by gryphel »

atreyu.ac wrote:I already asked him but didn't get a reply so I deduced he wasn't interested.
Here is a copy of the reply I made last night to your second email:
Sorry, paid work has gotten ever busier, and your previous email got lost. (Messages sent with "http://www.gryphel.com/c/feedback.html" may be less likely to get lost.)

Actually an SDL2 port of Mini vMac is something I was thinking of finding time for someday. Because my strategy for someday porting paid work to Android is to port Mini vMac to SDL2, which supports Android, and use that to make a native port of Mini vMac to Android in the same way I did the Cocoa port, and then compare the result to the existing Mini vMac Android port, all as way to become familiar with Android programming.

But there was no schedule to get started on this.
( ... quote of your plans to do SDL2 port ... )
That is very good news, and I'd be happy to try to assist as much as time permits.

(From now til the end of the year at least is extremely busy.)
( ... quote of questions about build process ... )
See "http://www.gryphel.com/c/minivmac/build.html"

The Mini vMac build system will generate a set of source files for you, in unix format, with which you can use gcc and make. Probably you'd want to use "-api sdl" as a starting point, along with other options you desire.

Only after you complete the port to SDL2 should you start to think about merging it back into the DSK image. Actually you don't need to think about this at all, I'll do it. Just send your source version to me, or publish it somewhere that I can find it.
(I don't generally favor using email for communication about Mini vMac. It is sometime unreliable. And also I wouldn't saying anything in email that I wouldn't say to the general public, and being that careful of what I say is a waste of time if only one person will see it.)
User avatar
gryphel
Nice Guy
Posts: 106
Joined: Sat Nov 17, 2007 6:46 pm

Re: Building minivmac outside minivmac

Post by gryphel »

atreyu.ac wrote:the building process that's on the official minivmac page involves building inside the emulator itself, but it uses GCC after all so it should be possible to somehow build outside, with a normal make/gcc/Makefile process as with any other Linux program.
To clarify, the "Build" application, the Mac 68k program that can be run inside Mini vMac, does not itself compile the program, ever. Instead it generates a set of source files to be compiled with the development tools you choose, such GCC and Make, which always run outside of Mini vMac, unless you are compiling Mini vMac for Mac 68k. (Actually it doesn't really generate source code, it just selects a subset out of all the available source code files that are needed for the requested options, and then generates configuration and make files or project files or whatever is needed for the selected development environment. It also does end-of-line format conversion on the source files.)
User avatar
gryphel
Nice Guy
Posts: 106
Joined: Sat Nov 17, 2007 6:46 pm

Re: Building minivmac outside minivmac

Post by gryphel »

atreyu.ac has made a port of Mini vMac 3.3.3 to SDL 2, available on GitHub.

I have merged these changes into Mini vMac 3.4, and made additional changes, which are available in the latest Mini vMac Development snapshot (see the Mini vMac News).
User avatar
adespoton
Forum All-Star
Posts: 4227
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2009 5:11 am
Location: Emaculation.com
Contact:

Re: Building minivmac outside minivmac

Post by adespoton »

That's great news! Thanks for bringing that back into the main project :)
Post Reply