chip8-odin

A cross-platform CHIP-8 interpreter/emulator written in Odin using raylib. CHIP-8 is considered by many to be a good entry point into emulator development.

Space invaders

Tetris (debug display enabled)

Build and run

Ensure Odin is installed and available on system PATH.

roms/TETRIS can be replaced with any CHIP-8 ROM path. A few test ROMs and games are included in this repository.

Windows:

git clone https://github.com/oliverbaileysmith/chip8-odin.git
cd chip8-odin
odin build ./src -out:chip8.exe
chip8 roms/TETRIS

Linux/macOS:

git clone https://github.com/oliverbaileysmith/chip8-odin.git
cd chip8-odin
odin build ./src -out:chip8
./chip8 roms/TETRIS

Controls

I chose to implement the COSMAC VIP keypad layout at right, which I've mapped to the QWERTY keyboard at left:

QWERTY keyboard:        COSMAC VIP keypad:
1 2 3 4                 1 2 3 C
Q W E R                 4 5 6 D
A S D F                 7 8 9 E
Z X C V                 A 0 B F

Debug controls:

• i to toggle debug display
• p to toggle emulation pause
  • t when paused to decrement delay and sound timers
  • space when paused to advance program counter by one instruction
• [ to decrease instructions executed per frame
• ] to increase instructions executed per frame
• esc to quit

Resources:

• https://tobiasvl.github.io/blog/write-a-chip-8-emulator/
• http://devernay.free.fr/hacks/chip8/C8TECH10.HTM