🎮 CHIP8-emulator

A flexible CHIP-8 emulator with plugin-based viewer support, implementing the original instruction set. Designed for extensibility through dynamic libraries and clean architecture.

🚀 TLDR

Clone this repo and compile project with:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make

To run:

./chip8-emulator sdl2-view your_rom.ch8

🕹️Here you could get some roms

✨ Features

• 🧩 Full implementation of original CHIP-8 instruction set
• 🔌 Plugin-based viewer system using Boost.DLL
• 🌟 Example SDL2-based viewer implementation
• 🌐 Cross-platform compatibility
• 🧹 Clean, modern C++ architecture

📦 Installation

🔑 Dependencies

• C++23 compiler
• CMake 3.22+
• SDL2 development libraries
• Boost 1.74+ (Headers and DLL components)

🔨 Building

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make

This will produce:

• chip8-emulator (main executable)
• libsdl2-view.so (SDL2 viewer plugin)

Usage

Run the emulator with a viewer plugin and ROM:

./chip8-emulator sdl2-view ../roms/game.ch8

🎮 Controls

Uses standart key mapping

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

🔌 Plugin system

The emulator uses Boost.DLL to load viewer plugins at runtime. Implement the abstract_view interface from include/view.hpp to create custom viewers.

Example viewer implementations:

• SDL2 Viewer (included)
• Terminal Viewer (planned)
• Browser Viewer (planned)

⚙️ Building Specific Components

Select components with CMake options:

cmake -DBUILD_CHIP8_EMULATOR=ON -DBUILD_CHIP8_VIEW_DLL=ON -DBUILD_CHIP8_TESTS=OFF ..

Available targets:

• BUILD_CHIP8_EMULATOR (main executable)
• BUILD_CHIP8_VIEW_DLL (SDL2 viewer plugin)
• BUILD_CHIP8_TESTS (Test suite)

🔮 Future Plans

✨ Feature wishlist for future releases:

• 🚀 Super CHIP 48/XO-CHIP support
• 🖤 Additional viewers
  • Terminal Viewer
  • Browser/Web Viewer
• 💾 Save/Load state functionality
• 🪲 Debugging interface and disassembler

🎉 Happy tinkering & emulating! 🌟