I want to write a program in Motorola 68000 assembler, the target platform is Neo Geo (games console from the nineties); this question is meant serious, I have a specific project which I want to realize and I have programming experience (though I am programming mostly Perl/R nowadays, I have only a little previous exposure to assembly programming).
The Neo Geo does not have much documentation available, however I have one document from Alexander Stante which contains information on the format and where to store the sprites, memory maps, where which memory mapped registers are, how the graphics and sound systems works etc.
So it should be possible to write a program in 68K assembler, assemble it on PC and run it from Neo Geo (or emulator, of which plenty are available, for testing).
I do have some background in M68 assembler, this was for some class during my C.S. master’s (10 years back); we assembled on a Sun Sparcstation and sent the program to an attached box which basically had a M68K with some RAM in it and not much else. So it was possible to load the “pure” object code into the CPU.
Now, what I do not understand about the Neo Geo is into which “format” I have to put the assembled code.
I.e. if I have assembled a program which I wrote in 68K assembly, how can I make it so that the emulator thinks it is a ROM-Image, or how can I build a CD (or CDZ, for that matter) which a physical Neo Geo CD will accept? Does it check for file names, or magic headers?! So my question is, how to I get the assembled object-code into the right “file-format”?! (sorry I don’t even know if that’s the right word for it).
I think I found the answer to my original question now, very recently a new wiki popped up which is just excellent for Neo Geo coding:
http://neogeodev.wikkii.com/wiki/Main_Page