Creating a MO5 template to stop fighting the build

Lately, I had way too many topics open at the same time.

Way too many 😅

In no particular order, there were:

  • continuing my experiments to better understand how graphics mode works on the MO5
  • completing the documentation of my RAG server
  • modifying that RAG server to simplify keyword management, then redeploying it with the new documentation
  • hosting my MCP server
  • building a small graphics-mode game on the MO5

And in the middle of all that, a very down-to-earth problem kept coming back:

every new MO5 project made me lose time reconfiguring the build, the tools, and the floppy disk conversions.

That’s how the idea of creating a MO5 project template was born.

Graphics on the MO5… from emulator to real hardware

For my graphics experiments, I naturally started with DCMOTO.

Fast, convenient, perfect for iterating.

But as soon as I wanted to move to a real MO5, an important hardware reality hit me:

  • the emulator works with .fd (floppy disk) files
  • SDDRIVE expects .sd files on the SD card

Which means you can’t test directly without a conversion step.

The .fd → .sd conversion: the little grain of sand

There is an existing utility (a Windows .exe) to convert .fd files into .sd.

But in my case, it was far from ideal:

  • not integrated into the build
  • OS-dependent
  • yet another manual step

In short, exactly the kind of thing I wanted to automate away.

So I went back to the sources and wrote a Python script responsible for handling the conversion.

Instead of copying it everywhere, I integrated it directly into my MO5 SDK, so there would be a single source of truth.

The template idea

At that point, I thought:

“If I have to redo this for every new project, I’m going to lose my mind.”

What I needed was a template that takes care of all the boring parts.

A base project that:

  • automatically fetches Olivier P’s repository to generate .fd files
  • fetches my MO5 SDK, compiles it, and produces a .a static library plus headers
  • correctly configures the cmoc command line (includes + library)
  • compiles the user project
  • generates a .fd file for emulator testing
  • generates a .sd file to test directly on a real MO5 using SDDRIVE

In other words: I write code, I run make, and it works.

GitHub + templates = ❤️

GitHub offers a simple but perfect feature for this: repository templates.

Exactly what I needed.

Let’s be honest:

  • this template is intentionally simple
  • it’s basically a Makefile and an example main.c

But it lays down all the foundations to start a MO5 project without wasting an hour on configuration.

So I created the template and published it on GitHub:

👉 https://github.com/thlg057/mo5_template

How to use it

Nothing fancy.

On GitHub:

  1. go to the template repository
  2. click “Use this template”
  3. create a new repository
  4. start coding 🎉

Everything else is handled by the Makefile.

What’s next?

This template will become my foundation for:

  • continuing my graphics experiments on the MO5
  • developing a small game
  • testing quickly on both emulator and real hardware

And most importantly:

stop wasting time on the build and focus on the fun.

Enjoy 👋