The MSX Games bOX: openMSX Compilation Guide for OS X



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			This intention of this page is to give some guidance to Mac OS X users who would like to try out openMSX and give them some help in using it for the first time. In opposition to ready-to-use emulators and applications, openMSX is an open source project that needs some work before you can start using it. The installation instructions below are only there to help you find your way through the 'complexity' of Unix commands andinstallation procedures. While at first looks it does not seem an easy task, you will certainly not regret spending some time now to follow this tutorial! Once running, you'll probably never use fMSX again - openMSX being much superior in almost all aspects (except the Graphical User Interface which is lacking - though we propose two AppleScripts on this page that will help you launch ROM and DSK games in one click). NB: This tutorial was written further to compiling openMSX 0.50 on an iMac G4 1Ghz running OS X 10.3.8 - performances of the compiled emulator being amazingly good. BEFORE THE FUN COMPILE OPENMSX ON OS X FIRST STEP: Get the source files of openMSX! Get them on http://openmsx.sf.net/ (get the latest release of the Platform-independent file; e.g. openmsx-0.5.0.tar.gz). Download the file and decompress it. For the sake of this tutorial: Rename the folder you've just decompressed to 'openmsx' and place it on your desktop We will compile openmsx on your harddisk in the folder /Games/openmsx You are free to choose any other naming conventions and install the files elsewhere if you wish so. SECOND STEP: Make your Mac OS ready so it can compile openMSX properly! You'll have to find your way through the Terminal. If you have experience with theTerminal, what's written below will sound very familiar and for real novices. However if you've never touched it before, then try follow this tutorial (I am not providing support whatsoever and I do not guarantee it will work for you. You are entirely responsible of any damage you might cause by trying or playing around with it): Install X11 (OS 10.3) or Apple's Development Tools (OS 10.2) Those should already be installed when you've first installed OS X but you can always get them at https://connect.apple.com (free registration). Install FINK If not already installed, go to http://fink.sourceforge.net/ and download the binary installer file of Fink (version 0.7.1 at time of writing). Then install it. THIRD STEP: Launch the Terminal to install via Fink the necessary libraries! The Terminal application can be found in your Applications/Utilities folder. If you've never used it don't be too scared though it is not very inviting... Type cd desktop/openmsx {ENTER} ./configure This will display something like (the example below is what you would aim for with openMSX 0.50) Probing target system... ld: can't locate file for: -lxyz Found libraries: libpng: 1.2.5 libxml2: 2.6.7 OpenGL: yes SDL: 1.2.7 SDL_image: yes TCL: 8.4 zlib: yes Found headers: libpng: yes libxml2: yes OpenGL: yes SDL: yes SDL_image: yes TCL: yes zlib: yes Components overview: Emulation core: yes SDLGL renderer: yes Customisable options: Install to: /opt/openMSX (you can edit these in build/custom.mk) All required and optional components can be built. In two words , for each library and header that's found you should see either a version number or a 'yes' statement. If a 'no' shows, it means you have to install them before you can start compiling openMSX... Assuming you'll have to install the libxml2, SDL and SDL_image libraries and headers Type within Terminal the following cd {ENTER} fink install libxml2 {ENTER} {FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS AND WAIT INSTALLATION ENDS} fink install sdl {ENTER} {FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS AND WAIT INSTALLATION ENDS} fink install sdl-image {ENTER} {FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS AND WAIT INSTALLATION ENDS} If you needed other libraries and headers to be installed, install them via Fink. Type 'Fink List' to see all available libraries, spot the one you need and type at the prompt the command 'fink install filename' where file name is the exact library or header name you need. If everything went well, if you run ./configure again, all your libraries and headers should be installed and you should be able to read on the last line the sentence 'All required and optional components are built' !!! FOURTH STEP: Edit the custom.mk file so that openMSX gets installed in your directory of choice By default, openMSX will compile itself in a folder caled opt/openmsx. I highly recommend not to do this as it is not only invisible in the finder, but you will not be able to place it elsewhere by drag&drop onto another location (after locating the file with an Apple-F command) - openMSX will not work if you change the location of the folder where you've compiled it in. For the purpose of this tutorial, we will compile openMSX in the folder '/Games/openmsx' in the root of Macintosh HD. Using the finder, open 'Macintosh HD' and create an a folder 'openmsx' in the 'Games' directory (you might have to create this folder as well) You can also create it using the terminal with the mkdir command Then edit the custom.mk file you'll find in the 'Build' folder of the 'openMSX' folder. open custom.mk in e.g. TextEdit Change the default line INSTALL_BASE:=/opt/openmsx into INSTALL_BASE:=/Games/openmsx Save the document FIFTH STEP: Compile openMSX... With a bit of luck, compiling openMSX could work in one-go... try it! In the Terminal, go to your desktop/openmsx directory... and type make {ENTER} {IT SHOULD COMPILE OPENMSX IN ABOUT 15 MINUTES ON A 1GHZ iMAC G4} make install {ENTER} {IT SHOULD INSTALL THE FINISHED OPENMSX IN THE FOLDER OPENMSX-FINAL} It didn't work? Two possible reasons are: If the problem arised when typing the 'make' command, you might need to install a program called make using fink & try again. If the problem arised when typing the 'install make' command giving you an 'Access Denied' error ... then you probably preferred to install in the default opt/openmsx directory but you haven't the permissions for it! You can simply overcome this problem by typing the following commands: sudo make {ENTER FOLLOWED BY YOUR USER PASSWORD} sudo make install {ENTER FOLLOWED BY YOUR USER PASSWORD} openMSX should be ready and you should be able to use it. The final files are located in your Games/openmsx directory! Hourray! The great thing that can be guaranteed, is that you really managed to compile openMSX on OS X. Congratulations! The bad thing, is that there is not any Graphical User Interface built to openMSX for OS X (except for the two little AppleScripts you can download at the bottom of this page)... meaning that if you want to use it, you'll have to continue using your now loved Terminal. Below you'll find a 'First Steps Guide' that will help you find your way in how to use openMSX, but in any case if you want to explore a little further into it, check the documentation that comes with it. AND NOW THE FUN CAN START FIRST STEPS GUIDE TO OPENMSX The first thing you'll want to do is to test out if openMSX effectively works! By default openMSX does not come with any of the system ROMS but just a simple MSX2 BIOS (and MSX1 BIOS) that enables you to run cartridge games. First copy a .rom game to the BIN directory of your openmsx folder (we'll give it the name game.rom in this example) You can place it anywhere else provided you give the correct path location of the file when launching openMSX... Secondly, go to the Terminal and place yourself in the BIN directory through typing 'cd /openmsx/bin/' - then type the following command: ./openmsx -cart game.rom {THE GAME STARTS!!!!} If you placed the game for instance on your desktop folder, you would have typed './openmsx -cart /Desktop/game.rom' Customising a specific MSX machine to run on openMSX The beauty of openMSX is that you can configure almost any MSX machine to be emulated from the MSX1 to the Turbo-R with almost any add-ons like FM-Pac, GFX-9000, Moonsound, IDE interfaces and almost anything you can imagine! Using the finder, go to your openMSX folder - you'll find three sub-directories: bin, doc and share Within 'Share' you'll find all the definitions of MSX systems and the documents that will tell you what files you need to emulate a specific MSX machine or specific extensions. Let's install the boosted MSX2 configuration with FM-PAC support and Moonsound Go to 'Share/Machines/Boosted_MSX2_EN and open the readme file... it will tell you which files you need to run that machine specification... Search the web and get the mentionned rom files... and place them either: In the ROMS folder of the 'Boosted_MSX2_EN' folder or (only if you're using openMSX 0.50 or later) in openmsx/share/SystemRoms Now that the boosted MSX2 has been configured you'll be able to run any files (.rom; .dsk; .cas...). Using the Terminal, place yourself in the openmsx/bin directory and type: ./openmsx -machine MSX2 -cart game.rom {TO RUN A ROM GAME PLACED IN THE SAME BIN DIRECTORY} ./openmsx -machine Boosted_MSX2_EN -disk game.dsk {TO RUN A DISK GAME PLACED IN THE SAME BIN DIRECTORY} Depending on which SystemROMS you've installed, openMSX offers multiple ways to customise your machine... please refer to the documentation located in the 'doc' folder. For a short list of possible commands type ./openmsx -h Console commands while openMSX is running While openMSX is running, you can do a certain number of operations through the openMSX console that can be invoked by pressing the F10 key (for some reason it only works in Full Screen mode on OS X 10.3.8). Please refer to the openMSX documentation to learn about all the commands (e.g. switching disks, set the emulation speed, reset the computer ... and hidden secrets!) And now to end this tutorial, a little surprise from The MSX Games bOX to launch your favourite ROM and DISK games with a simple Drag & Drop in the finder! Download here our DSK and ROM Applescripts! No Terminal, no complications, just start playing your favourite game within seconds! Just place the two files in your openmsx/bin folder and create an alias e.g. on your desktop or dock and start dragging and dropping your preferred games on it! They will start automatically. The two scripts assume you've installed the Boosted_MSX2_EN System Rom files & that you have installed openMSX in /Games/openmsx ... You can configure the scripts by editing them using ScriptEditor (located in Applications/AppleScript) Just customise the following string (example for DSK script - same principle applies to ROM script): set unixString to ("/Games/openmsx/bin/openmsx -machine Boosted_MSX2_EN -diska " & unixPath) into set unixString to ("/yourpath/openmsx/bin/openmsx -machine yourmachinename -diska " & unixPath)