Description
Provided Files, Folders, and Executables
● .vscode (folder)
○ tasks.json
● Makefile
● main.c
● Dockerfile
● visualboyadvance-m.app
Files to Edit
● tasks.json
Instructions
In this lab, you will be installing the software to write, compile, and run GBA games for this
class. It is broken up into various parts. If any part does not produce the expected outcome,
alert a TA via Teams and fix the problem before continuing. It is incredibly important
that you read each and every instruction. Many of your questions will be answered if
you read carefully. Do not skim this document! 🙂
Part 1: Docker Desktop
First, you’ll need to download Docker Desktop. In order to do this, you’ll need to sign up for
Docker Hub. Sign up for Docker Hub here: https://hub.docker.com/signup. You can use
your personal or GT email; either is fine.
Once you’ve signed up, follow the detailed Docker Desktop download instruction here:
https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/install/
CS 2261 Spring 2021
Here, you’ll click on the “Download from Docker Hub” button (as seen above) and, granted
you’re logged into the Docker Hub account you created, you’ll be taken to a new page that
looks like the following:
Press the “Get Stable” button. In your downloads, you’ll see “Docker.dmg”.
Now, follow the “Install and run Docker Desktop on Mac” instructions on the Docker
Desktop download instructions page
(https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/install/#install-and-run-docker-desktop-on-ma
c). Stop once you reach the “Uninstall Docker Desktop” section. Great, you’ve got Docker
Desktop on your machine! 🙂 Go to your applications, and click Docker.app, as seen below.
You should see, in the top right of your screen, a little icon that looks like the following:
CS 2261 Spring 2021
This icon indicates that Docker Desktop is running on your machine! YOU MUST BE
RUNNING DOCKER IN ORDER TO BUILD YOUR CODE. Otherwise, when you attempt to
build your code, you will see the following error:
If you see this, you’ll know you forget to open the Docker Desktop application.
Part 2: VisualBoyAdvance-M
Let’s get the GBA emulator setup! VisualBoyAdvance-M is the emulator for this class. If you
already have a GBA emulator that you are comfortable with, I still highly recommend you
use this one for this class. It has some special features that will come in handy for
debugging.
Find the “visualboyadvance-m.app” application in the Lab00 folder in a folder parent folder.
I recommend creating a parent CS2261 folder that will contain all of your homework, labs,
etc. and keeping the “visualboyadvance-m.app” in this folder. Lab00 should be in this
CS2261 folder, too. Keep a note of the exact path of the “visualboyadvance-m.app”. In the
image below, you’ll see a recommended folder setup. The exact path to
“visualboyadvance-m.app”, in this case, is
/Users/mariezimmy/CS2261/visualboyadvance-m.app
CS 2261 Spring 2021
You can verify the directory location of the “visualboyadvance-m.app” on your machine by
simply opening Finder, opening the CS2261 folder where you placed the
“visualboyadvance-m.app”, and dragging the “visualboyadvance-m.app” icon into the
terminal. The output in the terminal is the exact path to the “visualboyadvance-m.app”. The
sequence of images below shows this process.
In this case, as stated before, the exact path is
/Users/mariezimmy/CS2261/visualboyadvance-m.app. Copy this exact path
and paste it into your task.json, on line 9 in between “open” and “./Project.gba”. Make sure
there is a space after “open” and before “./Project.gba”. The (truncated) image below
outlines what my tasks.json looks like. Your exact path on line 9 will be different!
Remember to save your changes to your tasks.json file.
CS 2261 Spring 2021
Part 3: Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code is the text editor of choice for this class. We highly recommend you use
this editor. If you do not already have VSCode, you can download it here:
https://code.visualstudio.com/download.
Once downloaded, open VSCode, and open the Lab00 folder by selecting File > Open >
Lab00.
Open main.c and then hit cmd+shift+b to build your project (remember, Docker Desktop
needs to be running!). This first compilation process will take some time because a Docker
image is being downloaded from Dockerhub (don’t worry about the nitty gritty details of
this). All subsequent builds will not take this long (whew). In the terminal output in
VSCode, you should see something like this for the very first time you build:
Once the build is complete, you should see something like the following pop up:
If instead you get an error that that says you cannot open the visualboyadvance-m app,
follow the instructions here to allow your Mac to open the application from an unidentified
developer: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mh40616/mac. Then, try
CS 2261 Spring 2021
building again. You should see the image above.
If you do, congrats, follow the submission instructions 🙂 If not, recall, you need to have
Docker Desktop running to build your code! If this is not your issue, notify a TA via Teams.
Submission Instructions
Zip up the entire sample project folder, including all source files, the Makefile, and
everything produced during compilation (including the .gba file). Submit this zip on
Canvas.
Name your submission Lab00_FirstnameLastname, for example:
“Lab00_JennyZhou.zip”.
