A CHIP-8 emulator written in C++.

Future extensions:

• Add sound
• Create basic GUI taskbar, for loading ROMs etc.
• Create debugger

Referenced from the following links:

• https://austinmorlan.com/posts/chip8_emulator/
• https://tobiasvl.github.io/blog/write-a-chip-8-emulator/

Building

Prerequisites

• C++17 compatible compiler (clang, g++, MSVC)
• CMake 3.16 or later
• SDL2

macOS

Install SDL2 via Homebrew:

brew install sdl2

Linux

sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev

Windows

Download SDL2 development libraries from libsdl.org

Build Steps

cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build

If CMake can't find SDL2, specify the path:

cmake -S . -B build -DSDL2_DIR=/opt/homebrew/lib/cmake/SDL2 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

Running

The emulator requires three command-line arguments:

./build/mayochip8 <scale> <delay> <rom_path>

• scale: Window scale factor (e.g., 10 for 10x zoom)
• delay: Cycle delay in milliseconds (e.g., 2)
• rom_path: Path to a CHIP-8 ROM file

Example

./build/mayochip8 10 2 roms/test_opcode.ch8

Controls

• X → 0
• 1-3 → 1-3
• Q-E → 4-6
• A-D → 7-9, A-C
• Z-C → D-E, F
• ESC → Quit