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How to setup Free Pascal for Nintendo DS

Publication date: 22/01/2010 , Update date : 28/01/2010

By krachik (Jules AKAKPO-TOULAN)
 

This tutorial describes an easy way to install and configurate FPC4NDS (Free Pascal Compiler for Nintendo DS) on Linux and Windows.
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I. Introduction
II. Installation and configuration
II-A. On Linux
II-A-1. Creating the installation directories
II-A-2. Installing devkitARM
II-A-3. Installing libnds
II-A-4. Installing default_arm7
II-A-5. Installing fpc4nds
II-A-6. Modifying .bashrc
II-A-7. Creating .fpc.cfg
II-B. On Windows
II-B-1. Creating the installation directories
II-B-2. Installing devkitARM
II-B-3. Installing libnds
II-B-4. Installing default_arm7
II-B-5. Installing fpc4nds
II-B-6. Adding environment variables
II-B-7. Creating fpc.cfg
III. Compiling and running
III-A. Compiling and running on Linux
III-B. Compiling and running on Windows
III-C. Brief explanation
III-D. Using an emulator
IV. Conclusion
Useful links
Acknowledgements


I. Introduction

After my discovery of FPC4NDS, which is a development environment used to build applications for the Nintendo DS (NDS) platform, I wanted to share an easy way to set it up. At the end of all setup instructions, we will create a small example program.

Before deploying them on a real Nintendo DS, you will need an NDS emulator in order to test your programs.
Here are some emulators that you can download :

To program with FPC4NDS, it is required to have strong experience with the Pascal language.

info The successive steps of installation and configuration of Free Pascal for NintendoDS have been successfully tested on the following platforms : Linux Ubuntu 9.10, Mandriva 2008.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista.

II. Installation and configuration

To setup the Free Pascal for Nintendo DS environment you'll need :


II-A. On Linux


II-A-1. Creating the installation directories

You must choose now in which directories the different components will be installed. In our case, we have chosen the /opt directory, where we created two subdirectories : devkitPro and fpc4nds.


II-A-2. Installing devkitARM

1. Go to the devkitPro directory;
2. Create a new subdirectory named devkitARM;
3. Download the devkitARM package for your Linux distribution :

4. Extract the package into the devkitARM directory.


II-A-3. Installing libnds

Create the libnds directory in devkitPro. Download the libnds-1.4.0.tar.bz2 package and extract it into the libnds directory.


II-A-4. Installing default_arm7

Download the default_arm7-0.5.8.tar.bz2 package and extract the files default.arm7 and default.elf into libnds.


II-A-5. Installing fpc4nds

The next step is the content of the fpc4nds directory. Choose the latest package, i.e. arm-nds-fpc-2.4.0.i386-linux.tar . Extract it in the fpc4nds directory :

Here is the complete treeview of /opt now :


II-A-6. Modifying .bashrc

Add the following lines to the .bashrc file :

export PATH=/opt/fpc4nds/bin/arm-nds:$PATH
export DEVKITPRO=/opt/devkitPro
export DEVKITARM=$DEVKITPRO/devkitARM

II-A-7. Creating .fpc.cfg

Now let's create the configuration file necessary to run the execution environment. Create the .fpc.cfg in your home directory (/home/[user]/) and paste the following content into it :

-Tnds
-XParm-eabi- 
-Fu/opt/fpc4nds/units/arm-nds
-FD/opt/fpc4nds
-FD/opt/fpc4nds/lib
-Fu/opt/fpc4nds/units/arm-nds/libndsfpc
-FD/opt/fpc4nds/bin/arm-nds
-Fl/opt/devkitPro/libnds/lib 
-Fl/opt/devkitPro/devkitARM/lib/gcc/arm-eabi/4.4.2/thumb
-Fl/opt/devkitPro/devkitARM/arm-eabi/lib/thumb
-Fl/opt/devkitPro/devkitARM/lib/gcc/arm-eabi/4.4.2
-Fl/opt/devkitPro/devkitARM/arm-eabi/lib

II-B. On Windows


II-B-1. Creating the installation directories

As explained previously in the Linux chapter, choose the directory in which all the components will be installed. Let's choose the root C:\ and create two subdirectories named devkitPro and fpc4nds.


II-B-2. Installing devkitARM

1. Go to the devkitPro directory;
2. Create a new subdirectory named devkitARM; 3. Download the devkitARM package for Windows;

4. Extract the package into the devkitARM directory.


II-B-3. Installing libnds

Create the libnds directory in devkitPro. Download the libnds-1.4.0.tar.bz2 package and extract it into the libnds directory.


II-B-4. Installing default_arm7

Download the default_arm7-0.5.8.tar.bz2 package and extract the files default.arm7 and default.elf into libnds.


II-B-5. Installing fpc4nds

The next step is the content of the fpc4nds directory. Choose the newest package, i.e. arm-nds-fpc-2.4.0.i386-win32.zip . Extract it into the fpc4nds directory :

Here is the complete treeview of C:\ now :

+C\(root)
|____+devkitPro
     |_____+devkitARM
     |_____+libnds
           |______... other files and directories ...
           |______default.elf
           |______default.arm7
     
|____+fpc4nds
     |_____+units
     |_____+bin
     |_____+msg
     |_____+[examples]

II-B-6. Adding environment variables

Now let's create two environment variables : DEVKITPRO and DEVKITARM. On your desktop, right-click on My Computer, choose Properties and go to sheet Advanced :

Click on New to create two system environment variables named DEVKITPRO and DEVKITARM :


II-B-7. Creating fpc.cfg

The configuration file used for running the sources for the Nintendo DS platform must be similar to this :
					
-Tnds
-XParm-eabi
-FuC:\fpc4nds\units\arm-nds
-FuC:\fpc4nds\units\arm-nds\libndsfpc
-FDC:\fpc4nds
-FDC:\fpc4nds\bin\arm-nds
-FlC:\devkitPro\libnds\lib
-FlC:\devkitPro\devkitARM\lib\gcc\arm-eabi\4.4.2
-FlC:\devkitPro\devkitARM\lib\gcc\arm-eabi\4.4.2\thumb
-FlC:\devkitPro\devkitARM\arm-eabi\lib
-FlC:\devkitPro\devkitARM\arm-eabi\lib\thumb
Create the fpc.cfg file in the C:\fpc4nds\bin\arm-nds directory and paste in this file these previous lines.


III. Compiling and running

The environment is now completely set up and you can write your first NDS program. In order to help you in that task, there are some examples in the fpc4nds directory.
Let's compile and run our "Hello world". In the fpc4nds/examples directory, create a new subdirectory named my_first_program. In that directory, create the file helloworld.pp with the following code :

program helloworld;
{$mode objfpc}

uses  nds9;
begin
  consoleDemoInit();

  printf('Hello World !!!');
end.

III-A. Compiling and running on Linux

To compile the source file, go to the my_first_program directory and enter the following command to invoke the right compiler :

krachik@kraserver:/opt/fpc4nds/examples/my_first_program$ /opt/fpc4nds/bin/arm-nds/ppcarm helloworld.pp
Nintendo DS rom tool 1.46 - Dec 2 2009
by Rafael Vuijk, Dave Murphy, Alexei Karpenko
warning If the compiling process fails, make sure you have execution rights on the helloworld.pp file.

III-B. Compiling and running on Windows

To compile the source file, go to the my_first_program directory and enter the following command :

C:\fpc4nds\examples\my_first_program>C:\fpc4nds\bin\arm-nds\ppcarm.exe helloworld.pp
Nintendo DS rom tool 1.46 - Nov 30 2009
by Rafael Vuijk, Dave Murphy, Alexei Karpenko

III-C. Brief explanation

The consoleDemoInit() function initializes the Nintendo DS console screen for display. To use this function, you need to declare the nds9 unit in the uses section. To display a text you can use printf or iprintf.

The Nintendo DS runs applications compiled for the ARM7 or ARM9 platforms. If the whole process succeeds, *nef.bin, *.nds and *.nef files are created. If no target platform is mentioned, the default environment setting is {$apptype arm9}.


III-D. Using an emulator

You need an NDS emulator to test the program you've just compiled. See the emulator list above.
Let's choose for example the No$gba emulator : you only need to run NO$GBA.EXE and to load the helloworld.nds file.

Here is the result :


IV. Conclusion

In this tutorial you learned how to install and configure your environment to create and run applications for the Nintendo DS. Depending on the applications you are planning to create, you will need libraries that can be downloaded with the same URL as devkitPro (dswifi, libfat, a.s.o).

Notice that you can also run the NDS emulators on Linux with wine.


Useful links



Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Alcatîz and Mathieu Dalbin for the tests, advices, corrections and translation.



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