CHIP-8 Emulator

A simple and lightweight CHIP-8 emulator written in C using SDL2 for graphics, input, and audio.

⚠️ Warning The emulator produces a beep sound immediately on startup (classic CHIP-8 behavior). Lower your volume if needed.

Input Mapping

CHIP-8 uses a hexadecimal keypad. In this emulator, the keys 0–F are mapped directly to your keyboard:

1 2 3 4        →   1 2 3 4
Q W E R        →   5 6 7 8
A S D F        →   9 A B C
Z X C V        →   D E F 0

Building

Make sure SDL2 is installed.

make -B

This will compile the emulator and output the binary into ./build/.

Running a ROM

./build/chip8 ./assets/octojam2title.ch8

You can load any .ch8 program from the available assests folder or load your own sourced .che program.

ROMs

Most of the ROMs used during testing are from:

• https://johnearnest.github.io/chip8Archive/
• https://github.com/Timendus/chip8-test-suite.git

Features

• Full CHIP-8 instruction set (work in progress)
• Configurable CPU speed (default 700 Hz)
• Almost Accurate 60 Hz timers
• Square-wave audio beep
• SDL2 renderer with window resizing
• Modern, clean codebase designed for readability

Todo

• Complete missing opcodes
• Improve sound system (volume, toggling)
• Add debugger and step-mode
• Add settings for custom resolutions / themes

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the CHIP-8 community and the ROM archivists who help preserve classic programs.