Overview

This is a quick and dirty Chip8 emulator written in Go to further my knowledge on emulation.

How to build this application

• You will need to install SDL2 locally. No optional packages are needed for this application. Follow the Requirements section instructions in the go-sdl2 package README.
• Once installed, clone this repo and run go build
• If on Windows, you'll need to copy the runtime SDL2.dll into the repo directory as well as indicated in the go-sdl2 package README.

How to use this application

Flags

• -f: Path to a Chip8 ROM file
• -d: Specifies the cycle delay to control the emulator cycle and update speeds (optional, default 5)
• -s: Specifies the video scale for the emulator; Chip8 is 64x32 so 10 == 640x320 (optional, default 10)

Example

• Linux: ./go-chip8 -f ./roms/1-chip8-logo.ch8
• Windows: .\go-chip8.exe -f .\roms\1-chip8-logo.ch8

Example with optional args

• Linux: ./go-chip8 -f ./roms/1-chip8-logo.ch8 -d 10 -s 20
• Windows: .\go-chip8.exe -f .\roms\1-chip8-logo.ch8 -d 10 -s 20

Special Thanks

• Austin Morlan for his excellent write-up: article
• Tim Franssen for his collection of test ROMs: repo
• Zophar's Domain for Pong which is now in the public domain: website | mirror

TODO

• Implement sound functionality
• Implement 5x33 properly to handle BCDs - Every test I have tried fails