Building¶

Prerequisites¶

CMake 3.10 or later
C11-compatible compiler
SDL2 development libraries for the native framebuffer window and buzzer audio
libpng if SDL frame PNG support is desired
Git submodules initialized for the GXemul CPU engine
gtimeout or GNU timeout for bounded boot smoke tests

Clone And Submodules¶

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/jroark/be300-framebuffer.git
cd be300-framebuffer

If the repository was cloned without submodules:

git submodule update --init

Native CLI Build¶

mkdir -p build-host
cd build-host
cmake ..
make -j$(nproc)

On macOS, use a fixed job count or $(sysctl -n hw.ncpu) instead of $(nproc):

make -j$(sysctl -n hw.ncpu)

The native executable is written to build-host/be300.

Apple Silicon

The CMake configuration defaults to arm64 on Apple Silicon hardware when no CMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES value is supplied. Homebrew SDL2 and libpng from /opt/homebrew are detected when available.

Headless Build¶

SDL2 is optional for the native CLI. If SDL2 is not found, CMake builds a headless binary. Serial output and diagnostics still work, but no host display or audio window is opened.

WebAssembly Build¶

The web frontend reuses the same emulator core and adds Emscripten glue in web/main_web.c.

./tools/build_web.sh

The generated browser bundle is written to build-web/web/. See Web And Android Frontends for local serving and runtime notes.

Android Build¶

The Android app embeds the emulator core through JNI and renders the framebuffer in Java/Kotlin UI code:

cd android
./gradlew :app:assembleDebug

The debug APK is written to android/app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk.

Docker Cross-Tools¶

The Docker mips-dev environment is for MIPS and WinCE binary analysis, not for building the native emulator:

docker compose build mips-dev
docker compose run --rm mips-dev /bin/bash

The source tree is mounted at /work inside the container.

Toolchain	Target	Examples
`mipsel-linux-gnu`	Linux ELF and raw MIPS disassembly	`objdump`, `nm`, `readelf`
`mipsel-pe`	WinCE PE binaries	`objdump`, `nm`, `objcopy`

Example:

mipsel-linux-gnu-objdump -D -b binary -m mips:3000 -EL /work/docs/nk_decompressed.bin