Pongo BRIX

A pongoOS module for running the BRIX game, featuring rendering code I wrote at 1 AM and the CHIP-8 emulator I made 2 years earlier when I was scared of bitwise operations apparently

Usage

Before you begin

Warning: This project was intended to be compiled on macOS. If you're using Linux, you will have to modify the makefile and you might need to use something other than pongoterm.

1. Make sure you cloned pongoOS to ../pongoOS.
2. Apply the small patch in pongo_changes.patch to ../pongoOS. This patch makes pongoOS export two additional symbols that are required by the CHIP-8 emulator. You can apply this patch by running git apply pongo_changes.patch in ../pongoOS (replace pongo_changes.patch with the absolute path).
3. Compile pongoOS itself by running make in ../pongoOS.
4. Compile pongoterm by running make in ../pongoOS/scripts.
5. Boot into pongoOS with checkrain -k ../pongoOS/build/Pongo.bin -p if your device isn't already in pongoOS.

Compatibility

Currently supported devices:

• iPhone 7 GSM (iPhone9,3)
• iPad Pro 10.5-inch WiFi/Cellular (iPad7,4)
• iPad 10.2-inch 7th Gen WiFi/Cellular (iPad7,12)

If your device is already supported, great! You won't have to modify the code. You can skip to running BRIX. If your device isn't supported, adding support for your own device shouldn't be hard.

Adding support for your device

Different devices use different addresses for buttons and there doesn't appear to be an automatic way to extract these addresses from the device. However, you can use button_helper in this repository to manually find the button addresses for your device.

1. With your device plugged in, run make load_buttons. This will install the button helper module in pongoOS and show you the pongoOS shell.
2. In the pongoOS shell, run button_helper.
3. Follow the instructions given by the program. "Holding the mute switch" means muting and releasing it means unmuting. Example output:

pongoOS> button_helper

Device: iPad7,4

Get ready.
Hold "volume_down".
Release "volume_down" and keep it released.
Address: 0x20f1000ac

Get ready.
Hold "volume_up".
Release "volume_up" and keep it released.
Address: 0x20f1000a0

...

4. In main.c, add the values printed by this program. For the buttons your device doesn't have, specify NULL. If the program failed to identify any of the buttons, you can re-run the program until it finds the correct addresses. Make sure you place your values before { .name = NULL } since anything that comes after that will be ignored.
5. BRIX should now work on your device! You can now run BRIX.

Running BRIX

1. Run make load_brix. This will compile the module and load it in pongoOS.
2. Run brix in the pongoOS shell. Your device should now be running BRIX.

Controls

• Movement: vol+, vol-
• Reset: Press the power button while not paused.
• Pause: If your device has a mute switch, mute to pause. Otherwise, you can use the home button to pause. The game will remain paused for as long as you hold the home button.
• Exit: Press the power button while paused.