ZHIP8 - Zig CHIP-8 Emulator

I built this project with the intention of learning Zig. I used the following CHIP-8 references during the implementation process:

Started in Zig 0.10.0, left for a while and then ported to, and finished in Zig 0.13.0.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIP-8
• https://tobiasvl.github.io/blog/write-a-chip-8-emulator

The current implementation is lackluster in the graphics department, but this project is not about implementing OpenGL graphics, it is about understanding Zig as a language.

Compilation and Testing

Compilation using zig build produces a ./zig-out/bin/zhip8 binary.

zig build

Help page:

$ ./zig-out/bin/zhip8 --help
[-h] [-f <INT>] <ROM>...

    -h, --help
            Display this help and exit.

    -f, --frequency <INT>
            CPU frequency in Hz, default 700.

    <ROM>...

Unit Tests

Running the unit tests is done with:

zig build test --summary all

Input

The inputs are very rudimentary, but the mapping of keys are as follows:

1 2 3 4     1 2 3 c
q w e r  \  4 5 6 d
a s d f  /  7 8 9 e
z x c v     a 0 b f

Exiting the Emulator

Exiting the program is done by hitting <ESC>.