Rsp Software Development Tools; Rspasm - Nintendo Ultra64 Programmer's Manual

RSP Software Development Tools

Revision 1.0
A brief introduction to the RSP programming environment will provide a
framework for future discussions.
The following software tools are typically used for developing RSP code.
This section only mentions the critical, RSP-specific tools; other, more
general tools (like make and other UNIX tools) are not discussed.

rspasm

The assembler used to compile RSP microcode is rspasm. It is a simple,
2-pass assembler developed specifically for the RSP.
It interprets a simple assembly language, which is very R4000-like, but is not
MIPS compatible. The source language and assembler directives are unique
to the RSP.
The language, explained in more detail in Chapter 5, "RSP Assembly
Language," has the following major features:
• Mnemonic opcode syntax for all SU and VU instructions.
• Support for labels in the text section (for branching) and the data
section (for referencing DMEM).
• Simple expression parsing.
The language also includes a rich set of assembler directives, used to instruct
the assembler during compilation:
• Data directives, used to initialize DMEM.
• Symbol naming directives, used to assign meaningful names to
registers, labels, constants, etc.
• Diagnostic directives, used to enforce memory alignment, print
diagnostic messages, etc.
rspasm does not build standard ELF object files, which are required by the
makerom utility in order to include RSP microcode objects into a game. ELF
file creation is decoupled from the assembler and accomplished by the
rsp2elf tool.
RSP Software Development Tools
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