Rust-Z80

June 3, 2026 · View on GitHub

A fork of the Rust compiler with Z80 and SM83 (Game Boy) target support, using the llvm-z80 LLVM backend.

Supported targets

z80-unknown-none-elf
sm83-nintendo-none-elf

rust-z80 bundles its LLVM backend as the src/llvm-project submodule (the llvm-z80 fork) and builds it in-tree, so the installed toolchain is self-contained: rustc, cargo, the SM83 ld.lld, and the Z80 LLVM backend ship together.

1. Clone with the LLVM submodule

git clone https://github.com/zlfn/rust rust-z80
cd rust-z80
git submodule update --init --depth 1 src/llvm-project

2. Configuration

The repo ships a working bootstrap.toml: it builds LLVM in-tree with the X86 and Z80 backends (the Z80 backend also covers SM83), bundles lld, and installs cargo. Adjust it only if your setup differs.

3. Build and install

./x install

Builds the stage 2 compiler (the first run also compiles LLVM, which is slow) and installs rustc, cargo, lld, and the core/alloc for the Z80 and SM83 targets into install/.

4. Register the toolchain

rustup toolchain link rust-z80 install

install/ holds the compiler, cargo, linker, and target std together, so cargo +rust-z80 build works with no further configuration.

New ABIs

extern "sdcccall-0" — SDCC calling convention (feature gate: abi_sdcccall_0)
extern "z80-interrupt" — Z80 interrupt handler (feature gate: abi_z80_interrupt)

License

Rust is primarily distributed under the terms of both the MIT license and the Apache License (Version 2.0), with portions covered by various BSD-like licenses.