BUILDING RPC8e PROGRAMS IN C
----------------------------

There are two parts to a C environment: The compiler and the Runtime Library.

The compiler emits binary code that runs on the target system.  The runtime
library contains code that your code links to, so it can do things that
are done in different ways on different architectures.  Such as printing text
to the screen or reading input from the keyboard.

This package only implements the RPC8e Runtime Library and Target Configuration
for the excellent CC65 compiler suite.  CC65 can target many 6502 and related
systems, including the Apple ][, Commodore 64, and NES.  But it does not have
a runtime library for the RPC8.  That's what this is.

Hopefully someday I'll get around to making a nice web page explaining how to
set all this up.  Or make even a fancy Eclipse plugin that Just Works (tm).
For now, you'll probably have to do a little head-scratching based on the
information below.

1. Compiler
-----------

So, the first thing you'll want to do is install CC65.  CC65 development
happens at http://www.cc65.org , so you can read up on how it install it and
download sources and binaries from there.  However, if you are running a
Debian/Ubuntu/Mint Linux system, you may be able to find a prebuilt binary
package of CC65 for your system at
http://www.dizzydragon.net/svn/cc65rpc8/BinaryPackages/ .

Once you've installed CC65, you'll probably want to read at least section 2 of
the documentation at http://www.cc65.org/doc/ .  You might want to download
VICE (a Commodore 64 emulator) and try writing some example code for it, to
get the hang of using the cc65 toolchain, before delving into how to compile
and link code using this external runtime library for the RPC8.

2. Runtime Library / RPC8 Target
--------------------------------

That's what this is.

The RPC8 libraries are not yet complete enough for me to submit them upstream
for inclusion in the official CC65 distribution.  As such, CC65 does not have
a builtin target for the RPC8.  Until this library gets submitted upstream,
you'll want to use the "-t none --cpu 65816" flags and manually specify the
rpc8e.lib file for linking.

Like this:

cl65 --cpu 65816 -Osir -g -T -t none -c -o test.o test.c
ld65 -C rpc8e.cfg -m test.map -o test.img test.o rpc8e.lib

After building your *.img file, you must pad it to a multiple of 128 bytes.
Otherwise, the boot loader won't read the last sector from disk!  There is an
ANSI C program included that will do this for you:

./padimage test.img

The padimage tool should compile just fine on pretty much any Unix-like OS
(including MacOS) and on Windows with DJGPP (and probably Visual Studio, too).
If you want to submit a precompiled padimage binary for inclusion in the
repository, that would be awesome.  You can send it to [email protected] .

Once you have created the disk image, you can either run it on Bigfoot's
emulator (FIXME: insert URL) or import it into MineCraft (FIXME: insert URL).

If you are interested in developing/extending the runtime library itself,
please see
http://www.dizzydragon.net/svn/cc65rpc8/CC65-RPC8/README.LibraryDevelopment .