chip-8

CHIP-8 interpreter written in C using SDL2.

prerequisites

SDL2

SDL2 is used to render the graphics and handle the input. This library can be installed by:

• using a package manager (e.g. brew, apt, pacman, dnf)
• downloading one of the precompiled binaries
• downloading the source code and compiling it

compile

git clone https://github.com/jacob-thompson/chip-8.git
cd chip-8
make

run

./chip8 <rom> <rate>

For roms in the roms/ directory, you can omit the rom's file path and extension:

./chip8 spockpaperscissors

Note

• <rom> is the path to the ROM file
• <rate> is the rate at which instructions should be executed (in Hz)
  • The default and maximum instruction rate is 1000 Hz
  • The instruction rate is rounded to the nearest divisor of 1000 Hz (e.g. 500 Hz, 250 Hz, 125 Hz, ...)

controls

The controls are mapped to the following keys:

1 2 3 4
Q W E R
A S D F
Z X C V

special thanks

• tobiasvl
• Timendus
• johnearnest