sopwith_stm3241g_eval

About

Sopwith is a 1984 side-scrolling shoot 'em up created by David L. Clark of BMB Compuscience for MS-DOS PCs, using four-color CGA graphics, in which the player pilots a biplane to bomb enemy buildings while dodging enemy fire; a sequel, Sopwith 2, followed in 1985. This is a port of Sopwith to the STM3241G-EVAL evaluation board, running directly on the embedded hardware without requiring any additional components beyond the board itself. It includes Novice and Expert modes plus a mode to play against the computer, with missile and starburst weapons that can be optionally enabled.

How it differs from the original

Because the evaluation board exposes fewer physical buttons than the original control scheme calls for, the brake, missile, and starburst actions aren't mapped by default; a player can edit the source to remap one existing button to restore one of the missing actions.

Getting started

It can be built from source using the STM32CubeF4 HAL, a GCC ARM toolchain, and the st-flash utility, or simply flashed to the board using the provided precompiled binary. The joystick controls flap up/down and accelerate/decelerate, the select button drops bombs and navigates menus, a key button shoots, the tamper button flips the plane, and the wakeup button triggers an autopilot-to-home shortcut; the in-game menu offers Novice, Expert, and computer-opponent modes.

Known issues & limitations

• controls: Buttons for brake, missile, and starburst are not set due to hardware limitations requiring 11 buttons total.
• The full game experience requires 11 buttons, but buttons for break, missile, and startburst are not mapped.
• You can uncomment code to replace a current action, such as autopilot to home, with a missing action.

What you need to run it

Features

• The menu offers Novice, Expert, and Game against computer modes.
• You can switch off sound.

How to install

1. Flash the provided sopwith.bin binary at address 0x8000000 using a flashing tool.

Controls

• Joystick Select drops a bomb or selects a menu item.
• Wakeup activates autopilot to home.

Additional notes

External link

A YouTube demo video of the port running on the evaluation board is linked in the repo.

FAQ

What is sopwith_stm3241g_eval?

sopwith_stm3241g_eval is an open-source port of Sopwith. An existing game or its source code brought to another platform. The original game ran on Other.