How to install Nand2Tetris on macOS ( including Apple M1) for Computer Systems course

Nand2Tetris on macOS ( Apple M1 )

This tutorial will show you the instructions to set up the environment for Nand2Tetris and get Nand2Tetris installed properly.

One command to get everything ready

/bin/sh -c "$(curl -fsSL http://tiny.cc/2gmlsz)" && test "$SHELL" = "/bin/zsh" && source ~/.zshrc ; test "$SHELL" = "/bin/bash" && source ~/.bashrc

If you prefer to install Nand2Tetris step by step, just follow the rest of this tutorial.

Check your environment

Verify if you have java installed on your computer:

In the same terminal, type the following command:

java -version
# If you can see the output below, 
openjdk version "11.0.10" 2021-01-19
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 11.0.10+9)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 11.0.10+9, mixed mode)

If you can see java version or openjdk version then the java has been installed already. Otherwise, there is no java on your computer. Then you have to follow the instructions to install Java.

Step 1, install brew — package manager for macOS

In the terminal window copy and paste the following command to install brew.

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

Step 2, install Java

Java 11 is one of most popular version and it is LTS version. So, we use it here.

brew install java11

It may takes a while to get Java installed. Once it has done, run the following command again to see if java has been installed properly.

java -version

Step 3, Download and set up nand2tetris

This version was released by the University of Adelaide, which includes some patches for fixing some issues, and it can be used for the similar courses of other universities

cd $HOME
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wxw-matt/nand2tetris-macos/master/csadelaide-nand2tetris.zip
unzip csadelaide-nand2tetris.zip
cd csadelaide-nand2tetris
chmod +x tools/*.sh

Step 4, Test Nand2Tetris

Run Hardware Simulator:

$HOME/csadelaide-nand2tetris/tools/HardwareSimulator.sh

Run Jack Compiler:

$HOME/csadelaide-nand2tetris/tools/JackCompiler.sh 
$HOME/csadelaide-nand2tetris/projects/09/Square

Other commands you can use:

$HOME/csadelaide-nand2tetris/tools/Assembler.sh 
$HOME/csadelaide-nand2tetris/tools/CPUEmulator.sh 
$HOME/csadelaide-nand2tetris/tools/TextComparer.sh 
$HOME/csadelaide-nand2tetris/tools/VMEmulator.sh

Step 5, Add your path to zshrc or bashrc

Check your shell by typing echo $SHELL in the terminal window, you are most likely to see

/bin/zsh 
or
/bin/bash

If you are using zsh, use the following command to add your path to zshrc then reload zshrc:

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/csadelaide-nand2tetris/tools:$PATH"' >> $HOME/.zshrc
source $HOME/.zshrc

If you are using bash, use the following command to add your path to bashrc and reload it:

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/csadelaide-nand2tetris/tools:$PATH"' >> $HOME/.bashrc
source $HOME/.bashrc

Conclusion

As macOS now does not has Java installed by default, we must install Java first. To make Nand2tetris accessible from terminal, we need to assign executable permissions to some files and add them to PATH ,which we did in step 5.

After add your path to environment variable PATH, you can simply type CPUEmulator.sh in the terminal to launch CPU Emulator program.

If you have any questions, please open an issues or email me.