Re: DC dev: requirements?

[der Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>>>>> And I can't see anything else offhand that needs Windows, leaving
>>>>> me wondering why it's listed.
>>>> Probably the document writer knew only that way?
>>> That's what I was hoping someone would say.
>> Yep, that's exactly the reason.  [...]  Please, update if you can do
>> it without Windows and DiscJuggler.

I can.  I have.  I've now been booting my own CD-Rs regularly, no
Windows involved.  There is a binary blob involved in the form of
bootblock code; part of that is compelled by the DC ROMs (they
apparently require that the disc's first-level bootblock be some fixed
code); I believe I could in principle rebuild the rest of the
bootblocks but haven't bothered - I probably will someday.  I got the
blobs from Marcus Comstedt's stuff.

My workflow now is

- Cross-build NetBSD.
- Populate /dev in the DESTDIR tree.
- Cross-build a kernel.
- Run cdrecord to burn 4 seconds of silence audio to the disc.
- Run a script which does
  - Copy the kernel into DESTDIR.
  - Use objcopy to convert kernel to a memory image.
  - Run Marcus's scramble program on the kernel.
  - Run mkisofs to build the ISO image.
  - Drop the bootblock blob into the beginning of the ISO.
- Run cdrecord to burn the ISO to the disc.

Since I'm mostly doing kernel work at the moment, the first two items
of the above list I don't redo each time around the edit-build-test
loop.

> We here at Dreamcast-Talk.com are all watching this project to see if
> there is a bootable copy for the Dreamcast so we can give this a go.

Bootable copy of what?  The above works fine to get NetBSD running on
my Dreamcast, if that's what you mean.  I can give more details on any
of the above steps if you like.

/~\ The ASCII                             Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML                mouse%rodents-montreal.org@localhost
/ \ Email!           7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B