Compiling emulators - Lesson 1 - Z26

[joeblade]

Greetings all.

I have been wanting to (for my own purposes) start documenting how to compile numerous emulators (using freely available resource, from the  net), as I tend to like tweaking things.

One of the reasons why I want to look into this right now, is that 3 weeks ago my 30GB IBM DESKSTAR drive crashed (apparently its a common problem, its now a great paper weight), and even though I recovered most of my critical data, I lost my compile areas (for mame, z26, winvice etc) and am now having to work out from memory how to recompile them.
Hence what is in my head, I am now writing down.


Anyway, I realise that there is some information on the web for compiling this and that, but I generally find its:

(a) All over the place, not centralised.

(b) Not kept upto date.

(c) Not detailed enough for the noobs.


Hence, was wondering:

(a) Would people find this information useful if made available.

I realise that there are a few individuals that tend to compile and tailor the emulators for cabs, and make the exe's available (and we are all very thankful), but I reckon there is more people out there that would like to tinker but have been overwhelmed with the thought of having to compile the source.

(b) If there is a desire for this information, in an easy to understand form and a centralised location, if I write it, will someone host it for me ?

It will just be HTML, I will link to other pages, but my pages will not include any binaries.

(c) If there is a person that says yes to (b), will you also host my command line wrapper ? I just don't have time to come up with a decent web page, as well as everything else I am trying to achieve. Its currently hosted on my very quick and bland page - http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/joe_blade/cmd/
 

Anyway, for an example of what I am on about (although its in text form, and not html), I will get the ball rolling with Z26 (on a Windows based machine, using MinGW and not cygwin (in any shape or form)), see the attached file.

Certainly the most awkward (finding all the libs, tools etc) emulator I have compiled. But generally not that difficult once you know how.

Note that all the tools, libraries required are freely available off the net.

Cheers

Martin (my real name)

[rampy]

Hey Joe...

I'm working on a documentation project of sorts and maybe could give you the ability to document up a storm in a compiling FAQ section that you could maintain... if you wanted.

I'm still working out the kinks of what I'm trying to do.

maybe we can get the peanut butter and chocolate together on this...

rampy

[PacManFan]

Greetings all.

I have been wanting to (for my own purposes) start documenting how to compile numerous emulators (using freely available resource, from the  net), as I tend to like tweaking things.

One of the reasons why I want to look into this right now, is that 3 weeks ago my 30GB IBM DESKSTAR drive crashed (apparently its a common problem, its now a great paper weight), and even though I recovered most of my critical data, I lost my compile areas (for mame, z26, winvice etc) and am now having to work out from memory how to recompile them.
Hence what is in my head, I am now writing down.


Anyway, I realise that there is some information on the web for compiling this and that, but I generally find its:

(a) All over the place, not centralised.

(b) Not kept upto date.

(c) Not detailed enough for the noobs.


Hence, was wondering:

(a) Would people find this information useful if made available.

I realise that there are a few individuals that tend to compile and tailor the emulators for cabs, and make the exe's available (and we are all very thankful), but I reckon there is more people out there that would like to tinker but have been overwhelmed with the thought of having to compile the source.

(b) If there is a desire for this information, in an easy to understand form and a centralised location, if I write it, will someone host it for me ?

It will just be HTML, I will link to other pages, but my pages will not include any binaries.

(c) If there is a person that says yes to (b), will you also host my command line wrapper ? I just don't have time to come up with a decent web page, as well as everything else I am trying to achieve. Its currently hosted on my very quick and bland page - http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/joe_blade/cmd/
 

Anyway, for an example of what I am on about (although its in text form, and not html), I will get the ball rolling with Z26 (on a Windows based machine, using MinGW and not cygwin (in any shape or form)), see the attached file.

Certainly the most awkward (finding all the libs, tools etc) emulator I have compiled. But generally not that difficult once you know how.

Note that all the tools, libraries required are freely available off the net.

Cheers

Martin (my real name)

I wish I had those instructions when I did the keyboard hack, I spent almost a whole day trying to figure out how to get it to compile..
-PMF

[SirPoonga]

I wish I had those instructions when I did the keyboard hack, I spent almost a whole day trying to figure out how to get it to compile..
-PMF

What hack?

[rampy]

I wish I had those instructions when I did the keyboard hack, I spent almost a whole day trying to figure out how to get it to compile..
-PMF

What hack?

previous thread on z26 recompile ->mame keyset

you can download it here if you want *shrug*

[Shieldwolf]

that's awesome.  thanks

[joeblade]

Ok, first off -  Rampy, sounds pretty good mate.  I will start whipping up some text, and we can discuss the finer details at a later stage.

Secondly PacManFan, sorry dude. If you check the earlier parts of the thread you mentioned, you will find a post of mine, where I mentioned that I had previously compiled z26. But 2 days after making that post  (i.e on the following saturday) my HDD failed, and I was just in a world of hurt. By the time I had got my PC up and running (with a new WD 80GB drive) and recovered what I could off the old drive, you had already worked your magic.

Anyway, your efforts weren't in vain, many people appreciated it.

Cheers