bjt42 / softmpu

An MPU-401 emulation TSR for DOS
http://bjt42.github.io/softmpu/
GNU General Public License v2.0
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Use open tools to compile softmpu #32

Open hjnijlunsing opened 11 months ago

hjnijlunsing commented 11 months ago

Currently SoftMPU relies on tools like Microsoft C 6.0A and MASM 6.11. Both are not open and not maintained.

Although it is still possible to compile SoftMPU (https://github.com/bjt42/softmpu/issues/28) it would be easier for developers to make modifications without the need of these proprietary tools.

bjt42 commented 11 months ago

Agree that this would be desirable. At the time I wrote SoftMPU, I chose the Microsoft tools simply because of the well-documented syntax for calling C functions from ASM.

volkertb commented 11 months ago

I remember trying to build SoftMPU with the Open Watcom toolchain and @Baron-von-Riedesel's tools (JWASM and JWLINK), and getting quite far, but running into one issue, specifically where a tool was needed convert a C header (.h) file to an assembly (or assembly include?) file. Either I did manage to get the header file to be converted, but the linker didn't like the resulting file, or the conversion of the header file didn't even succeed. I'm not sure which one of the two.

But I do remember feeling that was quite close. With some help, I think we can get it working.

Also, as part of my work on writing an AIL/32 driver for modern sound devices, I have also been working on calling C code from assembly and I've gotten that to work with open source toolchains. I can share those insights with you, if that's useful.