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Chip-8 Interpreter is working

A project log for Tjipp8 - A Chip-8 game console

A low part count PIC16F1705 game console for the ancient (1970's) Chip-8 bytecode interpreters originally run at the Cosmac 1802.

matsengmatseng 01/24/2017 at 07:198 Comments

I spent some hours coding up the Chip-8 interpreter and got most of it implemented very easily.

But I still have to take care of the problem with the Chip-8 applications running from flash, thus preventing the applications to use unused parts of the 4K area as extra variable storage. Basically I just have to implement a lookup table pointing to the PIC's SRAM area and use that whenever a read/write to the Chip-8 area is detected. This is probably a few hours of coding and debugging - but that's things one have to accept when selecting the "wrong" hardware for a project. :-)

This is the classic MAZE demo running:

Discussions

coletonn wrote 01/24/2017 at 17:28 point

That's some old stuff man.

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matseng wrote 01/24/2017 at 18:05 point

sure is.... Of you actually every used a computer with chip-8 when is was invented you'd have a gray beard by now since you would be at least 50 years old... ;-)

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Aleksandar Bradic wrote 01/24/2017 at 17:24 point

Awesome! btw there's a very interesting book on this maze: http://10print.org/

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matseng wrote 01/24/2017 at 18:07 point

Nice! Downloaded for reading next weekend when I'm flying down to Kuala Lumpur. Will have some hours at the airport and another two at the flight to kill.... Thanks.

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SHAOS wrote 01/24/2017 at 14:21 point

cool

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Eric Hertz wrote 01/24/2017 at 08:32 point

Wow, that maze is pretty cool for a mere 64x32!

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matseng wrote 01/24/2017 at 12:05 point

Not only that. Whats really amazing is that it's only 15 lines of Chip-8 code plus 8 bytes of of graphic images! They for sure knew how to make a lot with little back 30-40 years ago.  The entire Chip-8 interpreter code fit into 512 bytes of Cosmac 1802....

https://github.com/badlogic/chip8/blob/master/roms/sources/MAZE.SRC

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Eric Hertz wrote 01/24/2017 at 12:43 point

Very cool, thanks! I implemented it in C just now, doesn't look nearly as cool in ascii ;p

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