Target

From MSX Game Library

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The choice of the target determines the final format of the game: ROM, disk, etc.

It is a parameter used by the Build Tool to adapt your code to the target during the construction of the final program and to assemble the data to be compatible with the target.

The choice of the format is made in the project configuration file (project_config.js).

Here is a description of the different target formats available in MSXgl.

Basic program

Binary program to be executed from the BASIC environment using bload function.

Target Description
BIN_DISK BASIC binary program (starting at 8000h) on disk
BIN_TAPE BASIC binary program (starting at 8000h) on tape
BIN_USR BASIC USR binary driver (starting at C000h)
BIN Alias for BIN_DISK
BAS Alias for BIN_DISK

Note: The maximum size of a BASIC program is about 24 KB (including variables).

The Build tool deployment step places your final program in several formats:

  • .bin format in emul/bin/ folder
  • .dsk format in emul/dsk/ folder (image of a floppy disk containing your program)
  • .cas format in emul/cas/ folder (image of a tape cassette containing your program)

MSX-DOS program

Binary program to be executed from the MSX-DOS environment.

Target Description
DOS1 MSX-DOS 1 program (starting at 0100h)
DOS2 MSX-DOS 2 program (starting at 0100h)
DOS0 Direct program boot from disk (starting at 0100h)
DOS Alias for DOS1
BOOT Alias for DOS0

Note:

  • The maximum size of a MSX-DOS program is about 53 KB (including variables).
  • For "DOS0" target, maximum is 48 KB (excluding variables).

The Build tool deployment step places your final program in two formats:

  • .com format in emul/dosX/ folder (dos1, dos2 ou dos0)
  • .dsk format in emul/dsk/ folder (image of a disk containing your program)

Plain ROM program


Exemple of default slot selection for a 32 KB plain ROM.

Binary program to be written into a ROM from 8 to 64 KB and executed from a cartridge.

Target Description
ROM_8K 8 KB ROM in page 1 (4000h ~ 5FFFh)
ROM_8K_P2 8 KB ROM in page 2 (8000h ~ 9FFFh)
ROM_16K 16 KB ROM in page 1 (4000h ~ 7FFFh)
ROM_16K_P2 16 KB ROM in page 2 (8000h ~ BFFFh)
ROM_32K 32 KB ROM in page 1&2 (4000h ~ BFFFh)
ROM_48K 48 KB ROM in page 0-2 (0000h ~ BFFFh)
ROM_48K_ISR 48 KB ROM in page 0-2 (0000h ~ BFFFh) with ISR replacement
ROM_64K 64 KB ROM in page 0-3 (0000h ~ FFFFh)
ROM_64K_ISR 64 KB ROM in page 0-3 (0000h ~ FFFFh) with ISR replacement
ROM Alias for ROM_32K

See also: Create a plain ROM.

The Build tool deployment step places your final program in emul/rom/ folder.

Mapped ROM program


Example of slot and segment selection for a 128 KB ASCII-8 mapped ROM.

Note: "MegaROM" refers to a ROM of 128 KB or more. Even though they are not widely supported, there is nothing to prevent you from creating a 64 KB ROM using a mapper. We therefore prefer to use the term Mapped ROM here rather than MegaROM.

You can create program using one of the ROM mappers supported by MSXgl:

Target Description
ROM_ASCII8 ASCII-8: 8 KB segments for a total of 64 KB to 2 MB
ROM_ASCII16 ASCII-16: 16 KB segments for a total of 64 KB to 4 MB
ROM_KONAMI Konami MegaROM (aka Konami4): 8 KB segments for a total of 64 KB to 2 MB
ROM_KONAMI_SCC Konami MegaROM SCC (aka Konami5): 8 KB segments for a total of 64 KB to 2 MB
ROM_NEO8 NEO mapper: 8 KB segments for a total up to 32 MB
ROM_NEO16 NEO mapper: 16 KB segments for a total up to 64 MB

In your project_config.js, chose as target one of the above target type. You can specify the ROM size (in KB) in the ROMSize variable. Default value is 128 (KB). Any multiple value of the mapper's segment size is valid, but we recommend using powers of 2 values (64, 128, 256, etc.) to help emulators to autodetect the right mapper.

Some Build Tool configuration examples:

//-- 128 KB ASCII-8 mapped-ROM
target = "ROM_ASCII8";
//-- 4 MB ASCII-16 mapped-ROM
target = "ROM_ASCII16";
ROMSize = 4096;
//-- 512 KB Konami SCC mapped-ROM
target = "ROM_KONAMI_SCC";
ROMSize = 512;

For more detail:

The Build tool deployment step places your final program in emul/rom/ folder.

Targets overview

Target Selected at boot Description
P0 P1 P2 P3
ROM_8K BIOS Cart RAM RAM 8 KB ROM in page 1 (4000h ~ 5FFFh)
ROM_8K_P2 BIOS RAM Cart RAM 8 KB ROM in page 2 (8000h ~ 9FFFh)
ROM_16K BIOS Cart RAM RAM 16 KB ROM in page 1 (4000h ~ 7FFFh)
ROM_16K_P2 BIOS RAM Cart RAM 16 KB ROM in page 2 (8000h ~ BFFFh)
ROM_32K BIOS Cart Cart RAM 32 KB ROM in page 1&2 (4000h ~ BFFFh)
ROM_48K BIOS Cart Cart RAM 48 KB ROM in page 0-2 (0000h ~ BFFFh)
ROM_48K_ISR Cart Cart Cart RAM 48 KB ROM in page 0-2 (0000h ~ BFFFh) with ISR replacement
ROM_64K BIOS Cart Cart RAM 64 KB ROM in page 0-3 (0000h ~ FFFFh)
ROM_64K_ISR Cart Cart Cart RAM 64 KB ROM in page 0-3 (0000h ~ FFFFh) with ISR replacement
ROM_ASCII8 BIOS Cart Cart RAM ASCII-8: 8KB segments for a total of 64 KB to 2 MB
ROM_ASCII16 BIOS Cart Cart RAM ASCII-16: 16KB segments for a total of 64 KB to 4 MB
ROM_KONAMI BIOS Cart Cart RAM Konami MegaROM (aka Konami4): 8 KB segments for a total of 64 KB to 2 MB
ROM_KONAMI_SCC BIOS Cart Cart RAM Konami MegaROM SCC (aka Konami5): 8 KB segments for a total of 64 KB to 2 MB
DOS1 RAM RAM RAM RAM MSX-DOS 1 program (starting at 0100h)
DOS2 RAM RAM RAM RAM MSX-DOS 2 program (starting at 0100h)
DOS0 RAM RAM RAM RAM Direct program boot from disk (starting at 0100h)
BIN_DISK BIOS BASIC RAM RAM BASIC binary on disk (starting at 8000h)
BIN_TAPE BIOS BASIC RAM RAM BASIC binary on tape (starting at 8000h)
BIN_USR BIOS BASIC RAM RAM BASIC USR binary driver (starting at C000h)

Main

For ROM or Basic program, the main function prototype is:

void main();

For DOS1 target, this prototype can also be used to get command-line arguments (set DOSParseArg to allow arguments parsing):

void main(u8 argc, const c8** argv);

For DOS2 target, this prototype can also be used to return a value du MSX-DOS:

u8 main();
u8 main(u8 argc, const c8** argv);
  • argc: Integer that contains the number of arguments present in argv. The argc parameter can be 0 if no parameter have been added to the command line.
  • argv: Array of null-terminated strings representing command-line arguments entered by the user of the program.
  • return: The return value can be catch by MSX-DOS 2 as an error code to know if program process succeeded or not.