This project is an interpreter and virtual machine for chip-8. Chip-8 is an interpreted programming language that allows for simple games to be ported to a range of systems from computers to phones to graphing calculators. While commonly referred to as an emulator, in beginning projects such as this one, the chip8 system has always been a virtual machine and was not originally implemented on hardware. If one wanted to run chip-8 games on a given platform, one would implement an interpreter/virtual machine such as this one.
Key mappings
|_ 1_ 2_ 3_ 4| |_ 1_ 2_ 3_ 4|
|_ 5_ 6_ 7_ 8| => |_ q_ w_ e_ r|
|_ 9_10_11_12| => |_ a_ s_ d_ f|
|13_14_15_16| | z_ x_ c_ v|
Note: Key mappings vary by game so you have to get a feel for each game.
Mac Installation
To install, simply copy and and paste the following command to the terminal in the project directory:
gcc -o chip8c -Wall main.c sdl_helpers.c chip8.c -I/Library/Frameworks/SDL2.framework/Headers -F/Library/Frameworks -framework SDL2
Then to run enter the command:
./chip8c "game name"
A pack of public domain games is available here.
Demo
