RGBDS

RGBDS (Rednex Game Boy Development System) is a free assembler/linker package for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. It consists of:

• rgbasm (assembler)
• rgblink (linker)
• rgbfix (checksum/header fixer)
• rgbgfx (PNG‐to‐Game Boy graphics converter)

This is a fork of the original RGBDS which aims to make the programs more like other UNIX tools.

This toolchain is maintained on GitHub <https://github.com/gbdev/rgbds>__.

The documentation of this toolchain can be viewed online here <https://rgbds.gbdev.io/docs/>, it is generated from the man pages found in this repository. The source code of the website itself is on GitHub as well under the repo rgbds-www <https://github.com/gbdev/rgbds-www>.

If you want to contribute or maintain RGBDS, and have questions regarding the code, its organisation, etc. you can find me on GBDev <https://gbdev.io/chat>__ or via mail at rgbds at eldred dot fr.

1. Installing RGBDS

The installation procedure <https://rgbds.gbdev.io/install>__ is available online for various platforms. Building from source <https://rgbds.gbdev.io/install/#building-from-source>__ is possible using make or cmake; follow the link for more detailed instructions.

.. code:: sh

make
sudo make install

.. code:: sh

cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build
cmake --install build

2. RGBDS Folder Organization

The RGBDS source code file structure somewhat resembles the following:

::

   .
   ├── .github/
   │   ├── actions/
   │   │   └── ...
   │   └── workflows/
   │       └── ...
   ├── contrib/
   │   ├── zsh_compl/
   │   │   └── ...
   │   └── ...
   ├── include/
   │   └── ...
   ├── man/
   │   └── ...
   ├── src/
   │   ├── asm/
   │   │   └── ...
   │   ├── extern/
   │   │   └── ...
   │   ├── fix/
   │   │   └── ...
   │   ├── gfx/
   │   │   └── ...
   │   ├── link/
   │   │   └── ...
   │   ├── CMakeLists.txt
   │   └── ...
   ├── test/
   │   ├── ...
   │   └── run-tests.sh
   ├── .clang-format
   ├── CMakeLists.txt
   ├── Makefile
   └── README.rst

.. |clang-format| replace:: clang-format .. _clang-format: https://clang.llvm.org/docs/ClangFormat.html

• .github/ - files and scripts related to the integration of the RGBDS codebase with GitHub.

  • actions/ - scripts used by workflow files.
  • workflows/ - CI workflow description files.

• contrib/ - scripts and other resources which may be useful to users and developers of RGBDS.

  • zsh_compl contains tab completion scripts for use with zsh. Put them somewhere in your fpath, and they should auto-load.

  • bash_compl contains tab completion scripts for use with bash. Run them with source somewhere in your .bashrc, and they should load every time you open a shell.

• include/ - header files for each respective C files in src.

• man/ - manual pages.

• src/ - source code of RGBDS.

  • Note that the code unique to each RGBDS tool is stored in its respective subdirectory (rgbasm -> src/asm/, for example). src/extern/ contains code imported from external sources.

• test/ - testing framework used to verify that changes to the code don't break or modify the behavior of RGBDS.

• .clang-format - code style for automated formatting with |clang-format|_. The C code does not currently follow this style, but all C++ code should.

3. History

• Around 1997, Carsten Sørensen (AKA SurfSmurf) writes ASMotor as a general-purpose assembler/linker system for DOS/Win32

• Around 1999, Justin Lloyd (AKA Otaku no Zoku) adapts ASMotor to read and produce GBZ80 assembly/machine code, and releases this version as RGBDS.

• 2009, Vegard Nossum adapts the code to be more UNIX-like and releases this version as rgbds-linux on GitHub <https://github.com/vegard/rgbds-linux>__.

• 2010, Anthony J. Bentley forks that repository. The fork becomes the reference implementation of rgbds.

• 2017, Bentley's repository is moved to a neutral name.

• 2018, codebase relicensed under the MIT license.

• 2020, repository is moved to the gbdev <https://github.com/gbdev>__ organisation. The rgbds.gbdev.io <https://rgbds.gbdev.io>__ website serving documentation and downloads is created.

4. Acknowledgements

RGBGFX generates palettes using algorithms found in the paper "Algorithms for the Pagination Problem, a Bin Packing with Overlapping Items" <http://arxiv.org/abs/1605.00558>__ (GitHub <https://github.com/pagination-problem/pagination>__, MIT license), by Aristide Grange, Imed Kacem, and Sébastien Martin.