Changes
/* Integrated toolchains */ Adjust cpc-dev-tool-chain description and difference with CPCtelera.
= Introduction =
Cross development is a development method where you use another machine (the host) to develop programs for the CPC (target). This is interesting because you can make a big program wich which sourcecode does not even fit on the CPC ram.
The main drawback is that transferring the compiled code to the CPC can be quite difficult. But there are pretty good emulators wich which you can use for testing.
Once you have your binary file you have two choices depending on if the game will be for [[Datacorder|cassette]] or [[Disk drives|disc]].
*[[Atari|Atari ST]] was a common 16 bit computer actually used in cross development of games on CPC.
Of course nowaday's nowadays cross development use far more powerfull powerful modern computers.
*[[ZX Spectrum]] was also a source of cross development...er... let's better say [[Speccy Port|Gross Development]] indeed.
= Tools needed for cross development =
== Integrated toolchains ==
An integrated cross-development toolchain is a time saver for development as it automates all necessary steps from a full set of source materials (source code, graphics, music, parameters in whatever format is practical for editing, etc) to one or several formats ready to run on the target machines. It also sometimes includes automatically launching or notifying an emulator or target device. See e.g. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_automation#Advantages Build Automation on wikipedia].
Such a design has several advantage:
* allows the usage of any text/graphic editor of modern platforms
* you can change anything in one or more source files and you get an updated build quickly without error-prone manual steps
* allows arbitrary transform or generation of intermediary files (code or data).
* makes easy to have specific builds (e.g. for automated tests like to check if a different compiler produces correct code, variant build for slightly different targets)
* since most material are text files or small independent files, it benefits hugely from modern tools for revision control like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_%28software%29 Git] which makes sharing and merging code between developers much easier, increasing the time saved.
An ideal toolchain does not force its user into specific ways of doing things but is flexible enough to let the user adjust for whatever specific needs (use different languages, compilers, linkers, etc). Along with a properly designed and structured source tree, this makes projects less dependent on specific tools used to build them, and be more resilient to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_rot bit rot] due to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_rot#Environment_change software build environment change].
Please note that an integrated toolchain has little to do with anything visible on-screen. A good toolchain can be triggered by most flexible enough graphical environments and generally produces a text log of the work done. Nevertheless, the concept of toolchains is more natural to Linux/Unix way of thinking/doing things, and those environments are already full of reusable and combinable tools that ease the creation and maintenance of a toolchain. Windows users can generally use tools developed for Unix through the cygwin software adaptation layer but running a Linux distribution in a virtual machine may be more practical.
There are some attempts at creating toolchains targeting the CPC.
Active as of 2017-11:
* '''[[CPCtelera]]''' integrates an out-of-the-box preconfigured build system, along with a game development library and tools and extensive configuration. It is also multiplatform, working on Linux, OSX and Windows. CPCtelera is a fork of [https://github.com/cpcitor/cpc-dev-tool-chain cpc-dev-tool-chain] tuned for 2D-sprite-oriented productions and extensive documentation. ''Recommended for beginners.''
* '''[https://github.com/cpcitor/cpc-dev-tool-chain cpc-dev-tool-chain]''' integrated C or ASM development toolchain for the Amstrad CPC platform (or emulator). '''Recommended for seasoned C programmers, Linux geeks, advanced users, general productions'''. Includes:
** Designed for quick start on Linux (or similar) systems : '''get a copy, write a "hello_world.c", run "make dsk" and get a DSK ready to run into the emulator'''. On linux "make run" even runs the emulator!
** Automatically downloads and compiles tools as needed, no interference with user account or global system, no administrator permission needed.
** Tools include:
*** gfx2crtc (transform PNG into CPC screen data),
*** png2cpcsprite (turn PNG into binary data formatted as ASM source code ''with metadata including palette'', zero run-time overhead),
*** SDCC compiler, assembler and linker,
*** hex2bin, addhead (prepare CPC binaries with AMSDOS header),
*** cpcxfs and iDSK (prepare DSK disc image),
*** rasm (Roudoudou's assembler)'''.
*** 2cdt (transform CPC binary to tape image),
*** playtzx (transform tape image into audio file to play to your CPC),
*** caprice32 (emulator),
*** cpcec (emulator),
*** exomizer (high performance compressor, PC side),
*** deexo (Z80 run-time exomizer decompression),
** Made for Linux, also works with Windows (via cygwin or similar), and probably Mac OS X. Most project+build-oriented features claims by CPCTelera comes from cpc-dev-tool-chain.
** Call firmware routines from clean C code! [https://rawgit.com/cpcitor/cpc-dev-tool-chain/master/cpclib/cfwi/coverage.html advanced coverage of the CPC firmware]
** Extensible projects structure based on GNU make
* Not an integrated toolchain, but a collection of tools that can be strung together to make one, including a DockerFile. Mentioned on [http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/off-topic/cpc-sdk-for-linuxunix/ CPC SDK for Linux/Unix]. Appears to have moved to https://github.com/cpcsdk
* 2012-11-12 [http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/programming/recommended-linux-cross-dev-tool-chain/ Recommended Linux cross-dev tool chain?] mentions a makefile-based toolchain targeting dsk images or tapes
* 2009-06-16 [http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/emulators/my-new-cross-development-kit/new/#new My new cross-development kit] explain what is basically a toolchain but link is broken as of 2013-01-08
== Linux ==
=== Cartridge management ===
* [[buildcpr]] [http://www.cepece.info/amstrad/download/buildcpr.zip]
=== Cross assemblers ===
* GNU Binutils for z80 (z80-unknown-coff platform)
* [[Z80asm]] [http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/z80asm]
* [[pasmo]]
* [[naken_asm]] [https://www.mikekohn.net/micro/naken_asm.php]
=== Cross compilers ===
* [[ZXBasic]]
=== Crunching ===
* [[Exomizer]]
* [[pucrunch]] [http://tj.gpa.free.fr/zip/sources/pucrunch.zip]
=== Disassemblers ===
* [[CPCTools]]
* [[ManageDSK|iDSK]] / * [[cpcfs]] / [[cpcxfs]]
* [[dsktools]]
* [[cpmtools 2]] [http://www.moria.de/~michael/cpmtools/]
=== Editing ===
* scite
* pico
* xemacs
* [[How to use VIM for CrossDev|Vim]]
=== Emulators ===
* [[Arnold (Emulator)|Arnold]]
* [[Caprice]] [http://sourceforge.net/projects/caprice32/]
* [[cpcemu]] [http://www.cpc-emu.org/]
* [[xcpc]] [http://xcpc.sourceforge.net/]
=== Tape management ===
* [[2cdt]] new version: [http://cpctech.cpc-live.com/download/2cdt.zip] — old version: [http://www.cepece.info/amstrad/download/2cdt.zip]
* [[cdtcheck]] [http://www.cepece.info/amstrad/download/cdtcheck.zip]
* [[cdttst]] [http://www.cepece.info/amstrad/download/cdttst.zip]
* [[samp2]] [http://www.cepece.info/amstrad/download/samp2.zip]
* [[UberCassette]] [http://www.retroreview.com/iang/UberCassette/]
=== Toolkits ===
* [[CPCSDK]] toolkit which contains useful tools for cross-development under Linux - [http://code.google.com/p/cpcsdk/]
=== Useful scripts ===
==== Supress Suppress header information of a file ====
<pre>
cat file_with_header | tail -c+129 > file_without_header
* a good emulator which can be integrated in other tools. (Ramlaid first try to change Caprice is a good start)
* an integration of Ramlaid's tools with Nautilus
* ameliorations of Caprice in order to have similars fonctionnalities similar functionalities than WinApe (disasm, asm, ...)
* debug the libdsk which seems to work very bad on actual computers (writting fail a lot)
* a lot of macros, or libraries for SJASMPlus shared by people in order to share code
*[http://little-bat.de/prog/ zasm]
*[[WinApe|WinApe]]'s built in assembler
* [[naken_asm]] [https://www.mikekohn.net/micro/naken_asm.php]
=== Cross compilers (C) ===
Beginner warning: unless you want to rebuild an entire toolchain by hand, you probably don't want to just download a C cross-compiler alone. Most probably, what you're looking for is an [[#Integrated_toolchains|integrated toolchain]] instead.
For a C tutorial, see http://www.cpcmania.com/Docs/Programming/Programming.htm by Mochilote
* [[Z88DK]]
* [[SDCC]], notably [[SDCC and CPC]] had hints and practical examples about the principles of writing in C for CPC.
* [[PhrozenC]]
=== Cross compilers (Java) ===
WIP
* [[JavaGrinder]]
=== Graphics ===
* Then you can run the program on the emulator the same way as you would run it on a real CPC
If your CPC has a 3.5" disc drive then the easiest method is to transfer the DSK to a 3.5" disc using the a PCwith a 3.5" drive (internal, not USB).
== Snapshots ==
== Web links ==
* [http://ramlaid.free.fr/Amstrad/English/crossDev.htm CPC Cross Development tools by Ramlaid](Link broken as 2012-01-08. If you can help, please update.)
[[Category:Programming]] [[Category:CrossDev]]
