DCPU-16: Bootable Emulator

A few weeks ago I was playing around with the idea of a DCPU-16 emulator which would run without an OS, instead relying only on BIOS calls and direct hardware communication.
I did a couple of tests to find out whether it would be possible, especially to see if all of the monitor's advanced features (font and color mapping) would work in the VGA text mode.
Seeing that it would be feasible, I started working on it.

So now, after weeks of frustration, complications and over 1800 lines of hand-written x86 assembly code, I'm able to present to you a 1.7-spec-compliant, low-level bootable DCPU-16 emulator.

I haven't tested this on too many platforms, and even if it works for you, I don't guarantee it's bug-free (it's written in assembler, after all :]). Also, an important
WARNING: Don't boot this program on a real computer if you
* would be sad about your hardware exploding,
* want to avoid data loss,
* don't know what you're doing.

Have fun!

Download:
https://bitbucket.org/benedek/x86-dcpu/

Reddit [/r/0x10c]:
http://www.reddit.com/r/0x10c/comment...

Reddit [/r/dcpu16]: http://www.reddit.com/r/dcpu16/commen...

0x10c Forum:
http://0x10cforum.com/forum/m/4932880...

EDIT: Woo! Hack a Day has Made my Day:
http://hackaday.com/2012/07/09/bootab...

EDIT 2: Wohoo! Notch has made my day even more:
https://twitter.com/notch/status/2223...

• Category

  Gaming

[Callum Steve]

Excellent work bro!

[Benedek Vartok]

Thanks!

[Benedek Vartok]

It is still an emulator.  Windows is an operating system, the DCPU-16 is not. It's another kind of computer. Compare it to a SNES if you will. If there was a bootable program that let you play SNES games, it'd still be a SNES emulator. The underlying computer (a x86) still gets x86 instructions, while a few levels above there's an abstraction of a SNES with entirely different instructions. An OS is something entirely different: It lets you run other x86-written programs on an x86 directly.

[Benedek Vartok]

It's the 1980's style computer Notch has designed for his upcoming space-game 0x10c. It will be used to control your space-ship in the game, and he already released the spec for it so people have been playing around with it a lot.

[Benedek Vartok]

No.

[theshyguykingdom]

Do you think you would be able to run TES: Arena ?

[TheMoisex01]

After a quick search the are already distros for these purposes. Which make it easear.

[Benedek Vartok]

Yeah. Still, coding a graphics driver is a huge project, and as far as I know, even though some manufacturers have released their specifications, the open source community still didn't make very good drivers for it. I'm not saying people are lazy or aren't trying, it's just very hard as far as I know :D

The good thing with Linux is that since it's so common, there exist relatively good proprietary drivers for it (I had good experiences with nVidia).

[TheMoisex01]

Ummm.. the most likely posible way would be to use a linux base distibution. Or use an opensource graphics card?

[Benedek Vartok]

To my knowledge that's pretty much impossible on PC hardware :)

Unless you're basing your "operating system" on Linux or something, you would have to code the OpenGL driver for the graphics card yourself, which is not really possible (some graphics cards and their drivers are just black-boxes that only its company knows how to control exactly).

Although, OpenGL is only a specification, so you could make a software-implementation using VGA graphics, for example (no acceleration at all then).

[TheMoisex01]

How would you run native opengl programs natively on boot up?

[Benedek Vartok]

Search my channel for "Portal End Credits", you'll find the whole video there :D