4 ms·

Octo: A Chip8 IDE

94 points by tosh 11mo ago

anthk 11mo ago
I love these tiny VM's, thanks to emulation I'm there since two decades. On a Chip8 interpreter written in AWK and a bit of help of coreutils (to mimick getchar in C to pick a single char; if you can do it under AWK without resorting to GNU od or read, kudos): https://git.luxferre.top/dale-8a/log.html https://git.luxferre.top/dale-8a/log.html OpenBSD and the rest of BSD users: you need to install 'coreutils' from ports, open 'dale8a.wk' and 'tgl.awk' and rename 'od -' to 'ggod -' . Proof that it works: https://0x0.st/KC_k.png https://0x0.st/KC_k.png
throwaway613745 11mo ago
Very cool. Reminds me of the Pico8. I love these types of vms that have deliberately limited specs. Really makes you sink your teeth into solving problems creatively with minimal resources.
- dizhn 11mo ago
  pico 8 still does not have an Android version for some reason.
  - Tiberium 11mo ago
    At least you can play a lot of the Pico-8 games through the website for free - their player shows virtual controller buttons, although for some games it can be awkward.
agentultra 11mo ago
Is it still being maintained? There used to be a game jam, Octojam, that was stopped years ago[0]. Seems mostly out of a lack of interest? Would be cool if it revived. It inspired me to start zig8[1], my own CHIP-8 emulator. It's not ready for prime time yet but it's getting there. When it's ready I hope it will have a visual debugger and feel good: fast, better shaders, better sound, good defaults, etc. CHIP-8 is a neat system. If you're interested in emulation it's a great place to start in my humble opinion. It's simple enough that you can finish it before deciding whether you like writing emulators. Hopefully interest in CHIP-8 would pick up again, it's a neat bit of history and a cool little system. [0] https://beyondloom.com/blog/octojam.html https://beyondloom.com/blog/octojam.html [1] https://github.com/agentultra/zig8 https://github.com/agentultra/zig8
- RodgerTheGreat 11mo ago
  Yes. I consider Octo feature-complete, but I still address bug reports.
  - agentultra 11mo ago
    That’s awesome! Also thanks for making Octo.
- azhenley 11mo ago
  I'm running a jam that starts Sunday called Langjam Gamejam that might interest you then. You have to make your own language and then use that to make a game. We have >120 people signed up and I'm expecting quite a few of the submissions to be similar to Chip8 or PICO8. Discussion about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46097671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46097671
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
flykespice 11mo ago
Chip8 is the rite of passage for many emulator devs due to its simplicity, it can be implemented on virtually every 1 cent microcontroller out there. It should've had a more dedicated vibrant community if it weren't the many incompabilities among the different emulators implementations out there, all due to people using cowgod's chip-8 tecnical reference as the single source of truth[0], which itself is based on David Winter's original implementation which contained a few inaccuracies on some instructions behavior from the original COSMAC VIP interpreter. [0]: http://devernay.free.fr/hacks/chip8/C8TECH10.HTM http://devernay.free.fr/hacks/chip8/C8TECH10.HTM
- RodgerTheGreat 11mo ago
  It's rather disheartening to see new chip8-related projects which reference Octo, modern test ROMs written with Octo, and still see a citation for cowgod's egregiously incomplete and misleading documentation.

94 points by tosh 11mo ago

anthk 11mo ago

I love these tiny VM's, thanks to emulation I'm there since two decades. On a Chip8 interpreter written in AWK and a bit of help of coreutils (to mimick getchar in C to pick a single char; if you can do it under AWK without resorting to GNU od or read, kudos): https://git.luxferre.top/dale-8a/log.html https://git.luxferre.top/dale-8a/log.html OpenBSD and the rest of BSD users: you need to install 'coreutils' from ports, open 'dale8a.wk' and 'tgl.awk' and rename 'od -' to 'ggod -' . Proof that it works: https://0x0.st/KC_k.png https://0x0.st/KC_k.png

throwaway613745 11mo ago

Very cool. Reminds me of the Pico8. I love these types of vms that have deliberately limited specs. Really makes you sink your teeth into solving problems creatively with minimal resources.

dizhn 11mo ago
pico 8 still does not have an Android version for some reason.
- Tiberium 11mo ago
  At least you can play a lot of the Pico-8 games through the website for free - their player shows virtual controller buttons, although for some games it can be awkward.

agentultra 11mo ago

Is it still being maintained? There used to be a game jam, Octojam, that was stopped years ago[0]. Seems mostly out of a lack of interest? Would be cool if it revived. It inspired me to start zig8[1], my own CHIP-8 emulator. It's not ready for prime time yet but it's getting there. When it's ready I hope it will have a visual debugger and feel good: fast, better shaders, better sound, good defaults, etc. CHIP-8 is a neat system. If you're interested in emulation it's a great place to start in my humble opinion. It's simple enough that you can finish it before deciding whether you like writing emulators. Hopefully interest in CHIP-8 would pick up again, it's a neat bit of history and a cool little system. [0] https://beyondloom.com/blog/octojam.html https://beyondloom.com/blog/octojam.html [1] https://github.com/agentultra/zig8 https://github.com/agentultra/zig8

RodgerTheGreat 11mo ago
Yes. I consider Octo feature-complete, but I still address bug reports.
- agentultra 11mo ago
  That’s awesome! Also thanks for making Octo.
azhenley 11mo ago
I'm running a jam that starts Sunday called Langjam Gamejam that might interest you then. You have to make your own language and then use that to make a game. We have >120 people signed up and I'm expecting quite a few of the submissions to be similar to Chip8 or PICO8. Discussion about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46097671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46097671

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

flykespice 11mo ago

Chip8 is the rite of passage for many emulator devs due to its simplicity, it can be implemented on virtually every 1 cent microcontroller out there. It should've had a more dedicated vibrant community if it weren't the many incompabilities among the different emulators implementations out there, all due to people using cowgod's chip-8 tecnical reference as the single source of truth[0], which itself is based on David Winter's original implementation which contained a few inaccuracies on some instructions behavior from the original COSMAC VIP interpreter. [0]: http://devernay.free.fr/hacks/chip8/C8TECH10.HTM http://devernay.free.fr/hacks/chip8/C8TECH10.HTM

RodgerTheGreat 11mo ago
It's rather disheartening to see new chip8-related projects which reference Octo, modern test ROMs written with Octo, and still see a citation for cowgod's egregiously incomplete and misleading documentation.