Classroom Glossary Public page

Lab Pack 5: Game Boy Core Frame Trace (Week 5)

Walk the open-source Game Boy core, trace one frame of execution, and identify five LR35902 instructions that differ from Z80.


What you ship

  • A one-page trace document: at clock N the core does X, at clock N+M it does Y.
  • A short comparison table: five LR35902 instructions, what they do, the Z80 equivalent (or 'no equivalent'), and why Sharp chose this way.
  • A Toolchain Diary entry for the Game Boy core source navigation tools you used.

Tools you use

  • The community Game Boy core source mirrored in your student repo under cores/gb/.
  • SameBoy or BGB for the cycle-accurate Game Boy debugger.
  • Workbench: 6502 REPL as a contrast point.

Success criteria

  • The trace document names actual clock cycles and actual register changes.
  • The comparison table is precise and references the rgbds gbz80 instruction reference.
  • You can explain why Sharp dropped the Z80 IX and IY registers.

Time budget

Plan for two ninety-minute lab sessions plus two hours of independent build-out. Slower students should plan for one extra session.

Submission

Push to your student repo under con-101/labs/lab-5/. Include source, a one-paragraph README, and a screenshot or short clip of the artefact running.