The goal of this project is to improve my Go skills and to enter into the world of emulation. So there it is, my Chip8 emulator !
To run this project you need :
If you're all set, you can now install this project !
To retrieve this project, use
go get -u github.com/mlemesle/chip-go-8
Now go to the project's root directory (where main.go is located) and run go build to build the project and generate an executable. You now have chip-go-8 executable file in your current directory !
To launch the emulator, simply run
./chip-go-8
It will run the emulator with default parameters :
- pong game will be loaded
- sound is active
- screen size is 1280x620px
You can customize the emulator using the following flags :
$ ./chip-go-8 --help
Usage of ./chip-go-8:
-mute
The emulator will be muted if set.
-ratio int
The ratio of the screen. The screen standard size is 64x32. (default 20)
-rom string
Specify a rom file to run. If not set, a pong image will be loaded (default "rom/pong.c8")
-test
If set, the emulator will boot with the test chip8 image from https://github.com/corax89/chip8-test-rom
So for example ./chip-go-8 -ratio 15 -rom path/to/file.c8 -mute will run the emulator with a screen size of 960x480px, load the file located at path/to/file.c8 and won't produce any sound.
Feel free to try ./chip-go-8 -test, it will run a special test image to assert that all opcodes are correctly implemented !
The computers which originally used the Chip-8 Language had a 16-key hexadecimal keypad with the following layout: original content
1 | 2 | 3 | C
4 | 5 | 6 | D
7 | 8 | 9 | E
A | 0 | B | F
I remapped this keypad to
1 | 2 | 3 | 4
A | Z | E | R
Q | S | D | F
W | X | C | V
You can find pretty cool roms right here ! You just need to download one of them, pass it to chip-go-8 and you're ready to go !