VMU development

Overview

Developing standalone games for the VMU is both a challenging and rewarding development feat. On one hand, it's not the easiest embedded device or to target, given that it doesn't have a C compiler and has its own set of hardware eccentricities. On the other hand, the device features a rich instruction set, 3 different clock sources, a FAT filesystem, and many different peripherals which can be leveraged by a developer, making it something of a Sega Saturn of little 8-bit gaming devices.

While there is an active an ongoing effort within the scene to lower the barrier of entry into VMU development and to get more high-quality tutorials and materials out there for newbies, this page will hopefully serve as an entry point for what is currently available.

Hardware

A high-level overview of the VMU's hardware and peripherals can be found here.

Programming

Since there is no C compiler for the VMU's 8-bit Sanyo CPU, development is traditionally done in Sanyo LC86k assembly language; however, it is now possible to write C code indirectly targeting the device via emulation of the ARM Cortex A23 CPU.

References

Here are some reference resources to get started

• Marcus Comstedt's VMU Programming Site
• link Dmitry.gr VMU hacking
• Slum Online development
• ElysianVMU - Emulator, File Manager, Debugger
• Waterbear - VMU Assembler, Disassembler, VMS tools
• VMU documentation in PDF: File:VMU.pdf

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