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public-events-microbit-epdemic: Compiling Guide

Here, we describe how to create an environment on windows, for compiling our code into binaries to copy to the micro:bit. In due course, I'll try this on other platforms, and perhaps make a docker container which will make life easier.

Compiling for micro:bit

Compiler Tools on Windows

Here's how I do offline compilation of C code to Microbit, on Windows. All of the below is based upon the manual instructions here; the automatic installer didn't work for me - yotta.exe never came into existence. But the below worked ok.

  • Install the latest Python 2.7. The build tool is written in python, and support for Python 3 is stated as experimental. I installed Python 2.7.15 64-bit. I let it install to C:\Python27.

  • There was no "Add to Path" option in the python installer strangely. So, add C:\Python27 and C:\Python27\Scripts to the system path in Control Panel, System, Advanced system settings, Environment Variables, Path.

  • New Command window, and run Python to check you get 2.7.15. (Multiple python versions and packages on the same machine is a specific kind of nightmare).

  • quit() python, and upgrade pip with python -m pip install --upgrade pip

  • Install the latest 64-bit CMake, currently here. It has an option to add to the system path, but this didn't work, so I manually added C:/CMake/bin to the system path, as earlier.

  • Install Ninja

  • I took the latest version, 1.8.2. It's a single executable file, so I cheated a bit, and put it in C:/Python27/Scripts which is already in the path, since its only one python-related file.

  • Install the gcc cross-compiler (gcc-arm-none-eabi). The Yotta notes talk about an old version 4.9. I've found 2017-q4 works, 2018-q4 doesn't (e.g. arm-none-eabi-objcopy: microbit-samples.hex 64-bit address 0x4b4fa300018000 out of range for Intel Hex file) Hence, I am using Here. I installed in C:\gnu_arm, and added C:\gnu_arm\bin to the system path.

  • Open a new command prompt, and pip install yotta.

  • There are currently (Jan 2019) some package incompatibilities, so we need to hack the following:-

python -m pip install pyopenssl==17.5.0
python -m pip install cryptography==2.1.4

  • Close/open a new command prompt, and test that yotta now does something. The executable for Yotta seems to have been added in C:\Python27\scripts.

  • Download SRecord from Here - and again, I just dropped the three executables in the install zip in C:\Python27\Scripts.

Test the Compiler

You don't have to do this part to comppython ile our code; it's just the process I went through first time to learn how to compile anything. If you don't want to do this, then skip down to the epidemic section below.

  • Change directory to somewhere you want to put micro:bit code. Clone the samples:
  • git clone https://github.com/lancaster-university/microbit-samples
  • cd microbit-samples
  • yt target bbc-microbit-classic-gcc
  • yt build - lots of deprecation warnings about C++ 11. Never mind.
  • New files have appeared in build\bbc-microbit-classic-gcc\source
  • Plug in a micro:bit.
  • Windows sometimes tries desperately hard to download drivers from Windows Update. I found the best thing to do was use a laptop and disconnect from WiFi.
  • Assuming it connected as drive E:, do this:-
  • copy build\bbc-microbit-classic-gcc\source\microbit-samples-combined.hex E:
  • and watch the Microbit. Hopefully...

To compile the micro:epi projects

  • In a command-prompt, move into src/microbit-projects
  • Don't do a yotta init in case you've seen that somewhere - .yotta.json and module.json are already in the repo.
  • yotta install lancaster-university/microbit gets all the code dependencies.
  • Edit microbit-projects\yotta_modules\microbit-dal\inc\core\MicroBitConfig.h Search for #define MICROBIT_BLE_ENABLED and set to 0
  • The build.bat script copies files into the source folder ready for compiling, while only needing one copy of the dependencies...
  • build master builds the master binary.
  • build minion builds the minion binary.
  • In either case, the resulting binary will be build\bbc-microbit-glassic-gcc\source\projectname-combined.hex
  • To deploy that binary it to an attached micro:bit, for example: deploy E:

Compiling Java code

  • Assuming that you've installed a Java JDK from somewhere like here, and you have javac.exe and jar.exe in your path, (perhaps by adding something like C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_181\bin in Control Panel, System, Advanced System Settings, Environment Variables, Path, and re-opening a command-window...)
  • ... then each of the Java folders within src/java-projects has a compile.bat which you run to compile the code.
  • For the make-stickers and multi-copy, the result is an executable JAR file. For the Slideshow, I haven't yet worked out how to make a working JAR file for a JAVAFx application that wants to read arbitrary external files. So the result for that case is a bunch of class files.