sQLux is a Sinclair QL emulator. It runs on Linux (including Rapsberry Pi), Mac and MS Windows. It is based on uQlx but with SDL2 used as its OS layer.
sQLux adds several features over the uQlx base code. See the Documentation for more details.
sQLux is in active development, with new functionality added regularly. However, the latest releases and packages are suitable for normal use.
Automatic builds are run and releases are available for the following architectures/O.S.:
-
Linux Ubuntu 22.04
-
aarch64
arm v8 -
armv7
(armhf kernel)
-
-
Linux Debian
-
Debian 11 Bullseye
armv7
(armhf kernel)
-
Debian 10 Buster
-
armv7
(armhf kernel)tested on RaspberryPI 400
-
-
-
MacOS Intel
-
Windows (built w/ MSYS2)
- 64bit
- 32bit
Releases are uploaded on Github automatically whenever a new tag, merge or pull request is pushed:
-
tags
onmaster
branch: Stable releases- The tag string is used as part of the releases description and artifacts names
-
master
branch: Development Releases- Every commit or pull into master branch generates a pre-release artifact
- older Development Releases are overwritten each time a new non-tagged build is run
Some Basic TL;DR instructions will follow for some architecture/O.S.
For more build tips, see Github Actions commands in .github/workflows/*.yml
definitions.
apt install build-essential cmake git libsdl2-dev
dnf install cmake gcc gcc-c++ git SDL2-devel
sQLux uses git submodules, so either clone with the --recursive
argument.
git clone --recursive https://github.com/SinclairQL/sQLux/
or after cloning
git submodule init
git submodule update
sQLux has switched to using cmake as its build system
-
Install dependencies as per above chapter
-
Build and test
cmake -B build/ make # then test the binary ./build/sqlux --help
-
Install dependencies
Dependencies are available with Homebrew
brew install cmake sdl2
-
Build and test
cmake -B build/ make # then test the binary ./build/sqlux --help
Instructions based on debian/ubuntu distro, for other distros you will have to modify as appropriate
Download the SDL2 mingw SDK and adapt the following to your environment/version. The SDL2 development libraries can be found here:
tar xvf SDL2-devel-2.0.18-mingw.tar.gz
cd SDL2-2.0.18/
sed -i "s|/opt/local/|/usr/local/|" x86_64-w64-mingw32/lib/cmake/SDL2/sdl2-config.cmake
sed -i "s|/opt/local/|/usr/local/|" i686-w64-mingw32/lib/cmake/SDL2/sdl2-config.cmake
sudo mkdir /usr/local/i686-w64-mingw32
sudo mkdir /usr/local/x86_64-w64-mingw32
sudo make cross
Now the mingw version of SDL2 is available and we can build sQLux for Win64
mkdir mingw
cd mingw
cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=../mingw-w64-x86_64.cmake -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/usr/local/x86_64-w64-mingw32 ..
make
Install MSYS2 from here https://www.msys2.org/
Run the mingw64 environment
Install the toolchain and SDL2
pacman -Sy mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain
pacman -Sy mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake
pacman -Sy mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL2
Create the build directory and compile
mkdir mingw
cd mingw
cmake.exe -G "MinGW Makefiles" ..
mingw32-make
This will generate sqlux.exe
. Dependencies are statically linked, so sqlux.exe
will run without the need for additional dlls.
The 64bit build using mingw requires the winpthread library for the high definition timer support.
The 32bit build can be built using win32 threads for XP compatibility and therefore does not include the high resolution timer support.
The emulator currently reads an existing uqlxrc file, so it will re-use any uQlx setup already existing.
NOTE: ROMIM has changed to now only accept 1 rom name
NOTE: RAMTOP is where in memory the top of the ram is, not the amount of ram. As ram on QL starts at 128k in memory map then to created a 128k QL you need to set RAMTOP = 256
sQLux supports additional parameters over those used for uqlxrc. See the Documentation for more details.
sQLux has support for GPU shaders, to emulate the effects seen when using a CRT display. See the Shader documentation for more details on how to build and run sQLux with GPU shaders.
-
update
CHANGELOG.md
using Keep a Changelog best practicesUse
[Unreleased]
during normal development phases- this will trigger a
latest
release build and upload
When ready, modify the version to something meaninful.
Any version different from
[vx.x.x]
or[vx.x.x-some-text]
will result in:- possibly missing Release Body text
- a
latest
release build and upload.
- this will trigger a
-
commit
$ git commit -m "Releasing v1.0.7-rc1" [dev-newci-4 51379d4] Releasing v1.0.7-rc1 2 files changed, 11 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
-
create tag
Optional.
If no tag is pushed, the workflow will overwrite/create a
latest
release.$ git tag v1.0.7-rc1
-
push commits && tags at the same time
$ git push origin dev-branch --tags Enumerating objects: 11, done. Counting objects: 100% (11/11), done. Delta compression using up to 8 threads Compressing objects: 100% (5/5), done. Writing objects: 100% (6/6), 657 bytes | 657.00 KiB/s, done. Total 6 (delta 3), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 remote: Resolving deltas: 100% (3/3), completed with 3 local objects. To https://github.com/<repo> b66ef20..51379d4 dev-branch -> dev-branch * [new tag] v1.0.7-rc1 -> v1.0.7-rc1