Chip-8

Core library for a Chip-8 interpreter.

This library only handles the core logic to run Chip-8 programs and does not handle any I/O, which allows it to be easily embedded into a UI.

Created by Joseph Weisbecker in the mid-1970s, Chip-8 is a programming language composed of hexadecimal instructions and are executed on the fly by a virtual machine. The language was created to make it easier to develop video games for the COSMAC VIP microcomputer.

After becoming popular because of its simplicity, people started to implement interpreter versions for other platforms but, because the language did not have a formal specification, many of these versions some instruction had some deviations on their behavior compared to the original COSMAC VIP version.

This project follows the Cowgod's Chip-8 Technical Reference v1.0 specification and partially replicates the specification on its own documentation, being able to act as standalone documentation if needed.

Usage

To run programs, you must initialize an interpreter instance through Chip8.initialize/1:

Chip8.initialize(program_data)

The returned interpreter instance holds all the required states for the program's execution at a given point in time. Since the instance is just a pure data structure, your application will be the one responsible to manage everything, from user interaction to managing cycles and their relation with timers.

See all Chip8 functions for more information about each operation.

Installation

The package can be installed by adding chip8 to your list of dependencies in mix.exs:

def deps do
  [
    {:chip8, "~> 1.0"}
  ]
end

The docs can be found at https://hexdocs.pm/chip8.