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Installing and Running the Emulator

This guide explains how to compile and run the bc6502emu emulator on a modern POSIX-compatible system. The emulator supports both the tiny and mini variants of the ByteCradle 6502 board and is designed for fast and simple command-line usage.

Platform Requirements

We assume you are working in a POSIX environment, such as Linux or macOS.
For Windows users, we warmly recommend installing Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). All development and testing have been done using Ubuntu, and we recommend it as the reference environment.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure your system meets the following requirements:

  • A C++17-compatible compiler
  • CMake for managing the build process
  • The TCLAP library for command-line parsing

To install all required dependencies on Ubuntu or Debian-based systems, run:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install build-essential cmake libtclap-dev

After compilation, the emulator binary will be located in the build directory under the name bc6502emu.

Ready to start using the emulator?

Go to the Running the Emulator