A Chip-8 emulator project designed to deepen my understanding of computer architecture.
This emulator uses SDL2 for graphics, sound, and key inputs.
- Build the project using the provided
Makefile. Navigate to thesrcdirectory and run:make - Start the emulator with the following command:
./chip8 ../roms/<rom_name>
Note that this emulator was built on a linux environment, hence the Makefile provided will only work on unix environments.
You can customize the emulator's behavior with the following flags:
-
--scale <value>- Default:
20 - Specifies the scaling factor for the window size. Actual dimensions are calculated as
WIDTH * SCALEandHEIGHT * SCALE.
- Default:
-
--speed <value>- Default:
700 - Sets the number of instructions to execute per second.
- Default:
These flags enable alternate behaviors for certain instructions based on variations introduced by other interpreters like Super-Chip, Chip-48, or the original COSMAC VIP:
-
--cp_shift- Default:
false - Enables the alternate implementation of the
OP_8xy6andOP_8xyEinstructions.
- Default:
-
--sc_jump- Default:
false - Enables the alternate implementation of the
OP_Bnnn(Jump with offset) instruction.
- Default:
-
--cosmac_mem- Default:
false - Enables the original COSMAC VIP implementation of the
OP_Fx55andOP_Fx65(Store/Load Memory) instructions. Without this flag, the Super-Chip and Chip-48 behaviors are used.
- Default:
./chip8 ../roms/IBM_Logo.ch8 --cosmac_mem --sc_jump --scale 30 --speed 750
+---------------+ = 0xFFF (4095) End of Chip-8 RAM
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| 0x200 to 0xFFF| Program/Data Space
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+- - - - - - - -+ = 0x600 (1536) Start of ETI 660 Chip-8 programs
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+---------------+ = 0x200 (512) Start of most Chip-8 programs
| 0x000 to 0x1FF| Reserved for interpreter
+---------------+ = 0x000 (0) Start of Chip-8 RAM