BlocksDS

BlocksDS
General
Author	AntonioND
Type	Development Tools
Version	0.8.1
License	Mixed
Last Updated	2023/08/01
Links
Download
Website
Source

BlocksDS SDK is an SDK for Nintendo DS. It's built on the hard work of many talented individuals. Here are its goals:

• Create a user-friendly NDS software development kit based on GCC, with minimal dependencies.
• Encourage developers to tinker and enhance the SDK by providing them with its complete source code. It also demonstrates how straightforward it is to build the entire codebase. The only exception is the tolchain, which can be tricky to build. To simplify things, we use Wonderful Toolchains instead of asking users to build it themselves.
• Strive to maintain compatibility with existing C projects. Ideally, replacing the makefile with one from BlocksDS should be sufficient to build any project that utilizes libnds.

This project is currently in beta stage, and most features are working. Please, check the libc port documentation for more information about the supported libc functions.

If you want to port a project built with devkitPro, follow this guide for instructions.

For detailed information about the design of BlocksDS, check this other document.

For licensing information, check this.

Changelog

v0.8.1

• libnds:
  • Fix NitroFAT in emulators. It only worked when DLDI was initialized correctly, which isn't the case in emulators like no$gba.
  • Set the right CPU as owner of the Slot-1 bus in NitroFAT handling functions.
• SDK:
  • Update build systems to generate Maxmod soundbanks in the NitroFAT filesystem if the filesystem is used. This isn't supported by ARM9 + ARM7 makefiles for now, only by ARM9 makefiles.
  • Fix segmentation fault in mkfatimg when not enough arguments are provided.
  • Stop relying on make -j in Makefiles. It is passed by make to any sub-make, so it isn't required.
  • Add basic Maxmod and Maxmod + NitroFAT examples.

v0.8

• libnds:
  • Document MPU setup code properly.
  • Cleanup exception handling code.
  • Add asynchronous math functions to complement the previous synchronous ones.
  • Support redirecting stdout and stderr to user functions.
  • Fix code that selects the default filesystem (DSi SD or DLDI).
  • Fix leaking file handlers in truncate().
  • Fix memory leaks in image and pcx modules.
  • Support more rumble packs.
• ndstool:
  • Fix warnings.
  • Remove non-homebrew-related functionality.
• SDK:
  • Automatically link with libc and libstdc++ rather than forcing users to do it explicitly.
  • Support *.arm.c and *.arm.cpp filenames for compatibility with devkitARM.
  • Correctly initialize TLS in the ARM7.
  • Improve bin2c.
  • Update libc documentation.
  • Improve and cleanup some examples.

v0.7

• libnds:
  • Unify all coding and documentation style of the codebase.
  • Change license of GL2D to Zlib (with the author's permission).
  • Improve sassert() so that it can exit to the loader instead of locking the application.
  • Keyboard:
    • Fix initialization glitch where it would blink for a frame.
    • Fix backspace handling.
    • Make it use cothread functions so that it never blocks the application.
  • cothread:
    • Fixed stack alignment
    • Fixed stack size of the scheduler thread.
  • libc:
    • Fix no$gba debug messages on the ARM9.
    • Add support of no$gba debug messages to the ARM7.
• mmutil:
  • Fix segfault with samples with implied zero loop.
• SDK:
  • Improve some old examples. Fix memory leaks in all examples that used
  • getcwd().
  • Fix ARM9 linkerscript to place ITCM sections in ITCM correctly.
  • Add new examples: Exception handling, assertions, no$gba debug console.
  • Prevent mkfatimg from generating FAT images that are so small that FatFs
  • can't mount them.
  • Improve installation instructions.

v0.6

• libnds:
  • Document MPU setup steps and CP15 registers.
  • Enable more warnings in the Makefile and fix them.
  • FIFO subsystem:
    • The FIFO subsystem has been cleaned up and documented.
    • Some bugs in the FIFO subsystem have been fixed (the stress test still fails, though).
    • Prevent using cothread_yield() in the ARM7.
  • libc:
    • Alignment of thread local storage sections has been fixed.
    • Support stat() in the root directory of a filesystem.
    • Support statvfs() and fstatvfs().
  • Avoid including the default keyboard data if it isn't used.
  • Allow setting the duration of the lid sleep check, and to disable it completely.
  • Build release versions of the library as well as debug.
• ndstool:
  • Support multiple languages in the banner.
  • Support more file formats for icons (GIF, PNG).
  • Support animated icons (from GIF files).
• SDK:
  • Refactor install targets of the SDK components. Now, all components can
  • be installed on their own, and they copy the licenses of the components to
  • the installation directory.
  • Emulate behaviour of bin2s of devkitPro more closely with bin2c.
  • Use SPDX license identifiers in all libraries and components that end up in
  • the NDS application binary.
  • Some cleanup of code formatting.
  • Added a DLDI driver template.

v0.5

• Define a default location for BlocksDS: /opt/blocksds/
• Use mkfatimg (distributed with FatFs) instead of imgbuild.sh to reduce
• the number of dependencies.
• Fix mmutil target in Makefiles in parallel builds.
• Cleanup of GBA slot peripherals drivers.
• Integrate libxm7 as a core library.
• Fix exit to loader code from the ARM7. It has been simplified a bit.
• Document exit to loader code.

v0.4

• Use Wonderful Toolchains to get full C++ standard library support.
• Remove picolibc and avr-libstdcpp as submodules (all previous history has been condensed to one commit).
• Multithreading:
  • Add cooperative multithreading scheduler.
  • Enable scheduler in the ARM9 by default.
  • Add examples of having multiple threads, mutexes, and asynchronous file
  • loading.
  • Support thread local storage.
• Added mutexes to problematic parts of libnds and FatFs.
• Add initial support and example of DSi camera (thanks, asie!).
• Support malloc() in the ARM7.
• Simplify build system of tests and examples.
• Bugfixes.

Credits

This project wouldn't have been possible without:

• Many thanks to asie for his help and advice, and for Wonderful Toolchains
• devkitPro
• picolibc
• libnds
• dswifi
• maxmod (and mmutil)
• grit
• GCC
• make
• And many others!

External links

• GitHub - https://github.com/blocksds/sdk