Chip-Fa

A fully-featured Chip8 emulator written in GO.

Current Status

The following is the planned features of Chip-fa:

• Screen emulation
• Sound emulation
• Keypad emulation
• Debugger
• Memory view (in debugger)

Installation

Chip-fa's executable is currently available in these platforms:

• Windows x86
• Windows x64
• Linux x64

Mac OS is currently not supported due to metal that cannot be cross-compiled.

To download the executable, head to release section.

For best experiece of using Chip-fa, please add it to the system PATH.

# Linux/Mac:
echo 'export PATH="$PATH:/path/to/chip-fa"' >> ~/.profile
source ~/.profile
# Windows:
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\path\to\chip-fa\

All NON-LINUX releases is created with XGO cross compile tool. compatibility not guaranteed.

Usage

Running a ROM with default configuration

chip-fa -r roms/tetris.ch8

You can also set the window scaling using the -s flag

chip-fa -r roms/tetris.ch8 -s 2.0

If you are using HIDPI screen, please make sure to set the -x flag according to your system scaling if not done automatically.

chip-fa -r roms/tetris.ch8 -x 2.0

If you want to alter the amount of cycle per second, it can be done by the -c flag.

# Run the emulator at 600/60 of the normal clock speed
chip-fa -r roms/tetris.ch8 -c 600

You can also enable debug mode for developing ROMS. (more about the debugger at the next section)

chip-fa -r roms/tetris.ch8 -d

Official ROMS

Official Chip-fa ROMS is listed below:

• https://github.com/kronmess/chip-fa-demo
• https://github.com/dankpanda/chip-fa-benchmark
• https://github.com/will8889/chip-fa-game

Debugging ROMS

Chip-fa includes a very powerful debugger for ROM developer. This debugger can be activated by pressing 0 when you are running a ROM the -d flag and will also be automatically activated when running a ROM with breakpoint (0x0001) instruction (this instruction is only available to this emulator). Some of the common use cases is available here:

Gather CPU related information (I,PC,stack,SP)

cpu

Gather instructions surrounding the current program counter

instruction-view

or

iv

Set a specific value to a register, in this case VF with value of 0xFF

sv 0xF 0xFF

more information about the command available in the debuger can be accessed from the help menu.

help

Additional Operation Codes

• 0x0001: Debug breakpoint, if a ROM contains this operation code, and debuggin mode is on, the application while stop and activate the debugger shell.

Screenshots

Bug Reporting

Please create a new issue with the bugs detail.

Support Us

Show your support to this project by submitting pull request or starring this project :))