go-CHIP8

CHIP-8 Interpreter using Go Programming Language

Table of contents

• What is CHIP-8
• Installation
  • Binary Download
  • Build from source
• Screenshots
• Testing and Correctness
• Todo
• References

What is CHIP-8

CHIP-8 is an interpreted minimalist programming language that was designed by Joseph Weisbecker in the 1970s for use on the RCA COSMAC VIP computer.

So CHIP-8 is actually a language (often mislabelled as emulator) and this project is about interpreting that language (CHIP-8 Interpreter).

However I also made a mistake at the start of this project, I also thought that CHIP-8 is an emulator. The package in this project even named emulator. Sadly, I am too lazy to change it.

Installation

Binary Download

1. Download the binary from Release Page
2. Run the program ./gochip8 <path to rom file>

Build from source

1. Download and Install Go
2. Follow instruction on go-sdl2 to setup SDL on your machine
3. cd to the project directory and go mod tidy
4. Build using go build -o gochip8
5. The binary gochip8 should be created. Run the program ./gochip8 <path to rom file>

Screenshots

Testing and Correctness

This project use chip8-test-suite for testing. Here is the results:

Test	Result
CHIP-8 splash screen	ok(1/1)
IBM logo	ok(1/1)
Corax+ opcode test	ok(22/22)
Flags test	ok(14/14)
Quirks test	not ok(5/6)

Todo

• 100% Test passed
• Add menu bar in the UI
• Add support for debugging

References

• http://devernay.free.fr/hacks/chip8/C8TECH10.HTM
• https://github.com/Timendus/chip8-test-suite
• https://tobiasvl.github.io/blog/write-a-chip-8-emulator/
• https://github.com/mattmikolay/chip-8/wiki/Mastering-CHIP%E2%80%908