Nuon SDK/Development Tools

This is an amalgamation of the Nuon Linux and Windows SDK files into one location, and configured to function correctly without any system-wide install step. Just clone this repo, run env.bat from a command prompt on Windows:

C:\Users\me\nuon-sdk>env.bat

Or source env.sh on Linux:

$ . env.sh

Note env.sh currently only works in bash shells. Patches for other shells welcome.

A few tools aren't yet available on Linux, so a few samples won't build there, and you'll need to switch to Windows for now to create NUON.CD files, but otherwise the environments should be equivalent.

Usage/Examples/Getting started

Once you've cloned this repo and initialized your environment as described above, you can build some of the included samples. Note you have to re-run the env.bat or re-source the env.sh program each time you start a new command prompt or terminal.

To get started, try building the included Hello-World example program:

Windows:

C:\Users\me\nuon-sdk>env.bat
C:\Users\me\nuon-sdk>cd vmlabs\Sample\Hello-World
C:\Users\me\nuon-sdk\vmlabs\Sample\Hello-World>gmake

Linux:

$ . env.sh
$ cd vmlabs/sample/Hello-World
$ gmake

This will produce a hello.cof file you can load in Nuance. Give it a try!

After that, try adapting one of the more complex sample programs to do what you want it to. Good starting points are Game-Controllers/DeadZone and Sprites/VMBalls4.

Testing/Running programs

Testing On An Emulator

Many programs will work fine in the Nuance emulator, available here:

https://github.com/andkrau/NuanceResurrection

Just load the .cof file produced from the build in Nuance's file selection dialog.

Testing On NUON Hardware

To test on real Nuon hardware, you'll either need to burn a CD-R or CD-RW with a NUON.CD file on it (Use track-at-once mode!) and put it in a Samsung N501, N504, or N505 model Nuon player, or sign the .cof file and put it on a DVD in the nuon directory. For best compatibility (I.e., to create a disc that will work on the Toshiba SD2300 players), create the disc image using the MacOS built-in DVD burning tool. You don't actually have to burn it from MacOS, just create the UDF/ISO image there. Other tools create images that work fine on all other known Nuon units, but not the Toshiba ones.

Testing using a CD-R or CD-RW

To create a NUON.CD file, use CreateNuonCD. This is a Windows-only tool at the moment, so you'll need to install WINE first to use it on Linux. The Linux SDK includes a wrapper script that detects and uses WINE when present. To speed up loading times and save space, since NUON.CD files must be 4.5MB or smaller, you will likely want to strip off debug and other unnecessary information from your file and compress it using coffpack. Some examples:

Windows:

c:\Users\me\nuon-sdk\vmlabs\Sample\Hello-World>vmstrip -F -o hello.stripped.cof hello.cof
c:\Users\me\nuon-sdk\vmlabs\Sample\Hello-World>coffpack -o hello.packed.cof hello.stripped.cof
c:\Users\me\nuon-sdk\vmlabs\Sample\Hello-World>CreateNuonCD hello.cof

Linux:

$ vmstrip -F -o hello.stripped.cof hello.cof
$ coffpack -o hello.packed.cof hello.stripped.cof
$ CreateNuonCD hello.cof

For the SDK examples, this has actually been incorporated into the Makefiles, so the initial above example that just runs "gmake" will already have created the NUON.CD file.

Now burn this to a high-quality CD-R or CD-RW using the ISO9660 filesystem, and using Track-At-Once (TAO) mode (As opposed to RAW, Disc-At-Once/DAO, or Session-At-Once/SAO) and place it in a Samsung n501, n504, or n505 or RCA DRC300N or DRC480N player and turn it on.

Note this is the only way to run games/homebrew software on the RCA units, but you'll be limited to the remote for controls since they have no joystick ports, and currently there's no known way to get sound working in games/homebrew apps on these systems.

Testing using a DVD-R

To load Nuon programs from DVD, you'll first need to sign them, and then rename them to "nuon.run" and place them in the appropriate directory on a DVD. To create a nuon.run file that you can burn to a DVD-R and play on any Nuon player that runs retail Nuon games, follow the above directions to generate a packed COFF file, and then use the "vmmakeapp" script to sign it:

Windows:

c:\Users\me\nuon-sdk\vmlabs\Sample\Hello-World>vmmakeapp hello.packed.cof 0
c:\Users\me\nuon-sdk\vmlabs\Sample\Hello-World>rename hello.packed.cof.app nuon.run

Linux:

$ vmmakeapp hello.packed.cof 0
$ mv hello.packed.cof.app nuon.run

Then, place this signed nuon.run file in the "NUON" directory of a DVD image using a UDF or hybrid UDF/ISO filesystem. For most players, you can use any DVD burning software to generate the image and burn it, but NOTE that the only known way to generate images that work on Toshiba SD2300 systems is to create the image using MacOS's Disk Utility or DVD/CD burning software. The key step is creating the image, so it's OK if your Mac doesn't have a DVD burner connected. Tell Disk Utility to generate a "Universal" format image from the directory containing your NUON directory, use the included MacOS DVD/CD creation program to burn the directory directly to DVD, or use the command line equivalent to generate an appropriate image:

MacOS:

$ mkdir MyNuonDVD
$ mkdir MyNuonDVD/NUON
$ mv nuon.run MyNuonDVD/NUON
$ hdiutil create -srcfolder MyNuonDVD -format UNIV -nospotlight -noanyowners MyNuonDVD.dmg
$ mv -v MyNuonDVD.dmg MyNuonDVD.iso

And then burn MyNuonDVD.iso to a DVD-R using your favorite DVD burning software on any machine/OS. Then put the resulting DVD in your Nuon DVD player and start it up!

NOTE: do NOT use DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, or DVD-RAM discs. Some have reportedly had success with DVD+R (I never have), so you can attempt those if you wish, but I've not yet heard of anyone successfully loading anything from a rewriteable DVD on a Nuon DVD player.

For more information on the process of signing COFF files for use on DVDs, refer to this Nuon Dome forum thread post:

https://www.thehelper.net/threads/nuon-authentication-tools-thread-emulating-older-outdated-versions-of-linux.167407/page-3#post-1395445

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the VM labs employees for developing the Nuon technology and releasing a public/homebrew SDK for it.

Special thanks to EdgeConnector and mgarcia for coercing the Nuon authentication tools and signing keys included in this version of the SDK into working again and porting them to Windows.