chip-8-emu

A CHIP-8 emulator written in C++17 from scratch.

What is CHIP-8?

CHIP-8 is an interpreted programming language developed in the mid-1970s for 8-bit microcomputers. It was designed to make game development easier and runs on a simple virtual machine with 16 registers, 4KB of memory, and a 64×32 pixel monochrome display.

Building

Dependencies:

• CMake 3.14+
• SDL2
• C++17 compiler

macOS:

brew install sdl2 cmake
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make

Linux:

sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev cmake
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make

Usage

./chip8 <rom>

Example:

./chip8 roms/tetris.ch8

Controls

CHIP-8 has a 16-key hex keypad mapped to your keyboard:

CHIP-8    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

ROMs

ROMs are not included in this repository. You can download a large collection of public domain CHIP-8 ROMs from the CHIP-8 Archive.

Credits

• Austin Morlan — whose guide was a helpful reference during development
• Cowgod's CHIP-8 Technical Reference — the definitive CHIP-8 specification
• CHIP-8 Archive — public domain ROM collection by John Earnest

License

MIT