A CHIP-8 emulator written in C++ using SDL2.
CHIP-8 is an interpreted programming language, developed by Joseph Weisbecker. It was initially used on the COSMAC VIP and Telmac 1800 8-bit microcomputers in the mid-1970s. CHIP-8 programs are run on a CHIP-8 virtual machine. It was made to allow video games to be more easily programmed for said computers. (From wikipedia)
This project requires cmake, SDL2 and SDL2_mixer. For compilation run the following commands:
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
This should create two executables: chip8_emulator and chip8_tests. To use the emulator you need to provide the path to the ROM file as argument. Some existing ROM's can be found in the /roms directory. For example to load Tetris use:
./chip8_emulator ../roms/Tetris
The computers which used the Chip-8 VM had a 16-key hexadecimal keypad. This layout has been mapped as follows:
Hex. Keypad Keyboard
+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+
| 1 | 2 | 3 | C | | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+
| 4 | 5 | 6 | D | | Q | W | E | R |
+---+---+---+---+ => +---+---+---+---+
| 7 | 8 | 9 | E | | A | S | D | F |
+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+
| A | 0 | B | F | | Z | X | C | V |
+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+
In addition it is possible to increase the emulation speed by pressing + and to decrease the emulation speed by pressing -. Note that this does not affect the delay and sound timers, which are both updated at a constant rate of 60Hz.
- CHIP-8 Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIP-8
- How to write an emulator (CHIP-8 interpreter): http://www.multigesture.net/articles/how-to-write-an-emulator-chip-8-interpreter/
- Cowgod's Chip-8 Technical Reference v1.0: http://devernay.free.fr/hacks/chip8/C8TECH10.HTM