"Closed system no game" my a$$. /s

Details

This is a port of the "cross-platform" version of NC1020 emulator, originally developed by Wang-Yue (which is based on some Chinese code of unknown origin). I made it even more cross-platform by introducing a HAL layer that handles page I/O, and wrote a HAL implementation targeting the toolchain I developed for Besta RTOS. When the emulator is built in release mode, it can manage about 50% speed on weaker Arm7-based machines like BA110 and more than 100% on powerful machines like BA742.

In the future, I may also branch off the NC1020 emulator used here into a standalone library (à la TamaLIB) so it can be easily ported to even more platforms, potentially including bare-metal targets.

Configuration file

You can create an optional configuration file in the same directory as the main EXE file to control various behaviors of the emulator. A template to get you started:

[Hacks]
; Control guest CPU speed override
;
; This slows down the program execution to ease host CPU load but keep the tick
; speed close to real time. The emulator will adjust the tick rate accordingly
; so the guest program will still tick at a consistent speed (i.e. RTC or other
; timings will still run at the correct speed). Set this to a lower value when
; you are experiencing slowdowns on underpowered hardware.
;
; When unset or set to 0, the default speed will be used (i.e. 5120000Hz).
;
; It's recommended to set this to 2176000 on BA110 and alike.
CPUSpeed = 0

; Limit the page cache size (in increments of ~32KiB)
;
; When this is unset or set to 0, the cache size will be automatically
; calculated based on available free memory. You can limit the value further
; by using this option.
;
; Note that this will not be able to override the hard size limit determined by
; the emulator based on current amount of free heap space.
CacheSizeLimit = 0

Notes on the ROM format

This port uses a simplified, slightly different ROM format than the typical one used by the official emulator and most 3rd-party emulators. They can be generated with the included script under scripts/gen_simplified.py from official emulator ROM files.

Key binding

Note

• Trivial keys (i.e. alphabets, page up/down and arrow keys) are not explicitly labeled.
• Keys labeled as XXX are currently unmapped.
• The MENU key is the function menu key (usually labeled as 功能 or roman numeral I). Not to be confused with the home menu key (usually labeled as just Menu or 目录).
• To save and quit the emulator, press and hold the home menu key mentioned above.
• SYMB/SRCH is an abbreviation of Symbol (符号)/Search.