G10 - A Virtual CPU

The G10 is a custom virtual CPU inspired by the CPUs that powered popular retro video game consoles, complete with an assembler and linker. Written in C++ with the C++23 standard.

Folder Structure

This workspace is organized into the following folder structure:

• docs/ - Contains specification documents for the G10 and tools.
• examples/ - Contains example projects written in the G10 assembly language.
• projects/ - Contains the source code for the G10 projects.
• scripts/ - Contains build scripts and other automation tools.
• tools/ - Contains build tools and other utilities.
• vendor/ - Contains some of the third-party dependencies which will be needed to build this workspace's projects.

Specifications

The projects in this workspace were written according to the following specification documents, with varying degrees of deviation:

• G10 CPU Specification
• G10 Assembly Language and Assembler Specification
• G10 Object File Format Specification
• G10 Executable File Format Specification
• G10 GB Specification

Dependencies

The following dependencies are necessary to build the projects in this workspace:

• A C++ compiler capable of supporting at least the C++23 language standard.
  • G++ version 15.2 was used to develop this project.
• Premake5
• SDL3
• Dear ImGui (Docking Branch)
  • With the SDL3 and SDLRenderer3 backends.
• Portable File Dialogs (PFD)

The Dear ImGui and PFD dependencies are provided in the vendor/ directory. The Premake5 dependency is provided in the tools/ folder. You will need to provide the SDL3 dependency.

Building and Installing

To build and install the projects in this workspace...

• On Linux:
  • Run the scripts/full-build.sh script to perform a clean build, which will also build the example projects in the examples/ folder.
  • Run the scripts/gen.sh script to generate the build files using Premake5.
    • Arguments passed into this script will be forwarded into Premake.
  • Run the scripts/build.sh script to build the projects generated by scripts/gen.sh.
    • Arguments passed into this script will be forwarded into the configured build tool (default: make).
  • Run the scripts/install.sh to install the release build libraries and binaries to a target destination (default /usr/local/lib and /usr/local/bin).
    • Note: If installing to default paths, you will likely need to run this script as root (use sudo).
    • Note: If installing shared libraries, you may need to run ldconfig after installing.
  • Run the scripts/asm.sh script to assemble and link G10 assembly code.
    • Pass in a folder containing the G10 assembly source code to build.
  • Run the scripts/example.sh script to build all of the example projects, without having to run scripts/full-build.sh first.
  • Run the scripts/clean.sh script to clean the build artifacts.

Projects

The following projects are included in this workspace:

• G10 CPU (projects/G10.CPU.*)
  • Library implementing the G10 CPU's emulation.
• G10 ASM (projects/G10.ASM.*)
  • Library implementing the G10 assembler and linker.
• G10 ASM Tool (projects/G10.ASMTool.*)
  • Command-line tool for assembling and linking G10 assembly code.
• G10 Testbed (projects/G10.Testbed.*)
  • A testbed emulator application used for testing the G10 CPU and ASM libraries.
• G10 GB (projects/G10.GB.*)
  • Library implementing a G10-powered virtual hardware platform based on the Game Boy and Game Boy Color.
• G10 Boy (projects/G10.Boy.*)
  • A frontend application for the G10 GB virtual hardware platform.