lr-vm/docs/getting_started.md

Getting Started

First, make sure you have built the main program and the assembler via the build instructions in the README.md.

Assembling

Write your assembly code in a plain text file and give it the extension .asm. Check out the assembly.md document to get started writing programs. Also see sample.md for some useful sample code. Then run

./assembler -f myprogram.asm

Which will produce a myprogram.bin file.

Packing data into a ROM

An included program called convertsprite can convert png images into the internal sprite format. The png images must use colors from the screen's 256 color palette as listed in colorpalette.gpl with the exception of a fully transparent pixel (alpha 0) which will cause the sprite color palette to use color 4 as transparency. The colorpalette.gpl file can be loaded into GIMP to make png creation easier. The png should be RGB, not indexed, and should have an alpha channel. Use convertsprite as follows:

./convertsprite mysprite.png

The program will output information about the sprite's size and color palette as well as a mysprite.spr file. Put .spr files together like as follows to have them all in one ROM file:

cat player.spr >> myrom.rom
cat enemy.spr >> myrom.rom

Any other data that you want to put in the ROM will have to be done yourself.

Using the compiler

See vaporlang.md for information on the capabilities of the compiler. Build the compiler by running make in the compiler folder. Use the compiler like:

./compiler -f myprogram.vapor

An output myprogram.asm will be created which can be assembled as described above.

Running

Run the binary with

./main -f myprogram.bin

Optionally add:

• -s #, where # is a number you want to scale the display by.
• -r myrom.rom to load up to 32768 bytes into the ROM section of memory.
• -d to debug the program. See debugging.md for more information.
• &> /dev/null at the end to suppress print statements.

Consider creating a shell script for your program that is similar to the included games/mars.sh script.