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Basic Setup

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Lucas O. Wagner edited this page Oct 4, 2016 · 16 revisions

So you got a bitbox, and now how do you use it? It is very easy.

Running included game

Generally the bitbox ships with an included game in flash memory. Which one depends on my mood (or your wish), but it can easily be changed (see next section).

  1. plug in a USB keyboard or some supported controllers, and connect the bitbox via VGA into a monitor/TV.

  2. Add power via microUSB or power pins. Play game.

Flashing new games

For a list of available games, see the Software Index, and proceed as follows:

  1. Get a microSD card, and format it as FAT32.

  2. From the [bitbox SDK] (https://github.com/makapuf/bitbox) or a [bitbox binary release] (https://github.com/makapuf/bitbox/releases), add 2nd_boot.bin to the root of your SD card. 1st bootloader is already in flash. It can be updated but you won't have to.

  3. Add other games (such as those found in Software Index) binary files (.bin) to the root of your SD card, as well as corresponding icons (.pbm files with the same filenames). Such files are available under the [binary releases on github] (https://github.com/makapuf/bitbox/releases) for different games.

  4. Plug in the SD card, plug in a USB keyboard or some controllers, and connect the bitbox via VGA into a monitor/TV.

  5. Add power via microUSB or power pins.

  6. Press the USER button, keep it pressed and press USER+RESET buttons.

  • The console will now load and boot the second bootloader.
  • Select the game you want, press the A button on the gamepad.
  • Wait while flashing.
  • When the game is said to be OK, press RESET. Now the game is in flash memory, and will play anytime you start the bitbox, even without the SD card in. (Though some games may want the SD card to write/read data.) Press RESET alone to reset the console, RESET+USER to put it in bootloading mode.

  1. Play game.

  2. GOTO 6.

What if the second bootloader does not run ?

The second bootloader is run from the SD card. Therefore it must be present (2nd_boot.bin) and working.

If there is an issue, you'll see long and short blinks.

# of Blinks Long blinks (when) Short blinks (what)
1 Mount SD card A hard error occurred in the low level disk I/O layer
2 Open bootloader file Assertion failed
3 Read bootloader file The physical drive cannot work
4 n/a Could not find the file
5 n/a Could not find the path
6 n/a The path name format is invalid

Going further

To further your experience and start developing games, you'll probably need to get a Development Setup going. After that, it's a simple make in each directory.

Good luck, and make sure to ask any questions on the mailing list:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/bitbox-console

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