Building and Setup

Building & Setup

Tigerbyte is portable C99 with no platform-specific code, so the same sources build everywhere.

Building

Clone the repo and build with a C99 compiler:

Platform	Command	Output
Windows (MSYS2 mingw64)	mingw32-make	tigerbyte_libretro.dll
Linux	make platform=unix	tigerbyte_libretro.so
Android (NDK)	cd jni && ndk-build	libretro.so per ABI (rename to tigerbyte_libretro_android.so)

Drop the resulting core into your libretro frontend's cores folder. In Emutastic it downloads automatically from Preferences → Cores.

Test tools

The repo also builds a set of standalone harnesses (make spike, make cpurun, make bootrun, make render, make framerun, make host) used during development — a CPU disassembler, an instruction-stepping CPU runner, a full-system frame runner that renders the LCD as ASCII, and a minimal libretro host that drives the built core through the real ABI.

System ROMs

The Game.com boots from its original firmware: a small internal boot ROM and a larger external kernel ROM. These are copyrighted Tiger Electronics images and are not distributed with the core — you must supply your own.

Place them in your frontend's system directory:

<system>/internal.bin     (the internal boot ROM)
<system>/external.bin     (the external kernel ROM)

A gamecom/ subdirectory is also searched. If either ROM is missing, the core reports a clear "missing system ROMs" message and won't start (the kernel genuinely cannot boot without them — games call into the external ROM's routines).

Cartridges

Cartridge dumps are .tgc or .bin (raw images, no header). Load one like any other content; the core also supports starting with no cartridge, which boots straight to the system shell. On power-up the machine shows its menu — select a cartridge there to launch it, exactly as on hardware.