I have previously posted instructions to install FrobTADS on CentOS, @fos1 has expressed some interest in how well I could build FrobTADS for the Raspberry Pi. I’ve had success in the past. These are my results with a new Pi and latest TADS for posix hosts (FrobTADS).
I got a new pi 4 with 8GB of RAM and an image of “Raspberry Pi OS with desktop and recommended software” based on Debian 10.9. After installing a few packages, fixing one issue, I seem to have the tools you would need to create and play TADS games (TADS 2 and 3) on the command line. (You can compose the games in any editor, but these tools are needed to compile the source into a GAM [game] file and run the game:
- tadsc - The TADS 2 compiler
- t3make - The TADS 3 compiler
- frob - The “runtime software” that allows you to play games)
Step 1 is to make a folder to house the software, and clone the FrobTADS repo maintained by @RealNC . You need git to clone this repo and some tools to build the software. I already had git and gcc installed (but not cmake), but I’m listing the commands anyway, because it does no harm to run them.
$ sudo apt install build-essential
$ sudo apt install git
$ sudo apt install cmake
$ mkdir projects
$ cd projects
$ git clone https://github.com/realnc/frobtads.git
Step 2 is to read the instructions and follow them 
I also had to install a few more packages:
$ cd frobtads/
$ more ../doc/INSTALL
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake ..
$ sudo apt install ncurses
$ sudo apt install libncurses libncurses-dev
$ sudo apt install libncurses-dev
$ cmake ..
$ sudo apt install curl
$ sudo apt install libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev
$ cmake ..
$ more ../doc/INSTALL
$ cmake --build .
At this point, I got some build errors:
In file included from /home/pi/projects/frobtads/tads3/tcprs.cpp:39:
/home/pi/projects/frobtads/tads3/vmbignum.h: In static member function 'static vm_obj_id_t CVmObjBigNum::create(int, const bignum_t<prec>*)':
/home/pi/projects/frobtads/tads3/vmbignum.h:585:45: error: exception cleanup for this placement new selects non-placement operator delete [-fpermissive]
new (vmg_ id) CVmObjBigNum(vmg_ prec);
^
<built-in>: note: 'void operator delete(void*, unsigned int)' is a usual (non-placement) deallocation function in C++14 (or with -fsized-deallocation)
/home/pi/projects/frobtads/tads3/vmbignum.h: In static member function 'static vm_obj_id_t CVmObjBigNum::create(int, const bignum_t<prec>&)':
/home/pi/projects/frobtads/tads3/vmbignum.h:596:45: error: exception cleanup for this placement new selects non-placement operator delete [-fpermissive]
new (vmg_ id) CVmObjBigNum(vmg_ prec);
^
<built-in>: note: 'void operator delete(void*, unsigned int)' is a usual (non-placement) deallocation function in C++14 (or with -fsized-deallocation)
This had previously been reported: https://bugs.gentoo.org/700992 The fix suggested is to add a new flag.
So, Step 3: Using your favorite editor, edit the CMakeFile.txt file in the current directory and find these lines (lines 41 and 42 for me):
//Flags used by the CXX compiler during all build types.
CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS:STRING=
Change the FLAGS line to add this:-fno-sized-deallocation, so it should look like this:
//Flags used by the CXX compiler during all build types.
CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS:STRING=-fno-sized-deallocation
This allowed the build to complete (with one warning). The warning was:
[ 18%] Building CXX object CMakeFiles/TADS3_RC_OBJECTS.dir/tads3/vmbiftad.cpp.o
/home/pi/projects/frobtads/tads3/vmbiftad.cpp: In static member function 'static vm_obj_id_t CVmBifTADS::format_datetime_list(time_t)':
/home/pi/projects/frobtads/tads3/vmbiftad.cpp:2300:49: warning: right shift count >= width of type [-Wshift-count-overflow]
vmg_ FALSE, (uint32_t)(timer >> 32),
^~
[ 18%] Building CXX object CMakeFiles/TADS3_RC_OBJECTS.dir/tads3/vmbiftio.cpp.o
Here’s what success looks like:
pi@raspberrypi:~/projects/frobtads/build $ ls -l
total 6104
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 22817 Jun 19 21:19 CMakeCache.txt
drwxr-xr-x 16 pi pi 4096 Jun 19 21:25 CMakeFiles
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 174251 Jun 19 21:19 Makefile
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 7982 Jun 19 21:14 cmake_install.cmake
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pi pi 2984652 Jun 19 21:25 frob
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 1479 Jun 19 21:14 frob_config.h
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 585 Jun 19 21:57 history.txt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pi pi 2682284 Jun 19 21:23 t3make
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pi pi 308328 Jun 19 21:24 tadsc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pi pi 47892 Jun 19 21:23 tadsrsc
Step 4: The installation is one more command and must be done as root (using sudo):
sudo cmake --build . --target install
Step 5: Of course, you’re not done until you test the software…
cd
mkdir games
cd games
wget https://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/tads/ditchday.zip
mkdir ditch
cd ditch
unzip ../ditchday.zip
frob DITCH.GAM
Building a large game using T3 will probably take a little while, but the conditional compilation feature of T3 should make Pi a reasonable platform for building T3 games. I think it’s a good platform to play games. Raspberry Pi OS seems very polished and the Pi 4 is peppy.
I suppose the next project is Qtads…
