Frost64 - A Custom 64-bit Architecture

COPYING

Copyright (©) 2024-2025 Frosty515

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

Design

• 64-bit architecture
• Full design can be found in docs/design.md
• Design of some internal aspects can be found in docs/internals.md

Pre-requisites

Requirements

• CMake
• Ninja
• A C/C++ compiler that supports C23 and C++23

Linux (GNU C/C++)

Debian

• run sudo apt update && sudo apt install build-essential cmake ninja-build to install dependencies

Fedora/RHEL

• run sudo dnf install gcc gcc-c++ cmake ninja-build to install dependencies

Arch

• run sudo pacman -Syu base-devel cmake ninja to install dependencies

Gentoo

• run sudo emerge --ask --verbose sys-devel/gcc sys-devel/binutils dev-build/cmake dev-build/ninja to install dependencies

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Building

1. run mkdir build && cd build to create a build directory and enter it
2. run cmake -GNinja .. to generate the build files. -DBUILD_CONFIG=<config> can be added to the cmake command to specify the build type. <config> can be Debug or Release. It defaults to Release. -DBUILD_ARCHITECTURE=<arch> can be added to the cmake command to specify the architecture. Currently, the only supported architecture is x86_64. It defaults to x86_64. -DENABLE_SDL=ON can be added to the cmake command to enable the SDL backend for the video device. It defaults to OFF. Note that the SDL backend is very experimental.
3. run ninja install to build and install to the src directory. The binaries will be in the bin directory in the src directory.

Running the Assembler

• In the source directory, run ./bin/Assembler < -p path/to/assembly > < -o path/to/binary > to assemble the assembly file.
• For more options, run ./bin/Assembler --help to see the available options.

Running the Emulator

• In the source directory, run ./bin/Emulator < -p path/to/binary > [ -m RAM size ] to run the emulator.
• The RAM size is optional and defaults to 1 MiB.
• For more options, run ./bin/Emulator --help to see the available options.

Notes

• The assembler and emulator are still in development and may not work as expected. Please report any issues you find.

Current todo list (in no particular order)

• make fancy docs
• add better macros
• firmware spec
• maybe make a gtk backend for the video device or make it less buggy
• start writing firmware
• llvm backend
• make examples
• custom fs
• custom executable format