Chip 8

The chip 8 was a virtual machine used in the 60s and 70s on a 1802 processor, and in the 90s on a HP-48c. The Chip8 is a computer that never actually existed, except as an emulator on other computers, merely an interpreter of an imagined processor's instructions. It was designed to make it easy to write simple computer games (simple, no Quake ports here I'm afraid) with several of its minimal instructions being used to scroll the screen, plot sprites etc. It had only a 64x32 pixel display, 4Kb of memory, and a sound buzzer, as you can see a very simple system (if you're interested in simple emulated systems, take a look at my Baby emulator of the worlds 1st modern computer). The chip8 took input via 16 keys used to control everything.

Eli-Jean Leyssens (otherwise known as Pervect) a member of TopixWEB, has created an emulator of the Chip8 to run on your Acorn. It also emulates the SuperChip8 which had extended graphics capabilities, as well as a higher resolution of 128x64 pixels, and has much better games for it. Programs are copied into a specific directory and the game name typed in for it to be run. Software for the chip8 on the web seems to be quite few and far between, but I've put copies of all the games I've found in the Chip8 directory ready to be run. There are some classics, such as pong, breakout, to name but a few and they're great fun when you appreciate how small they are, the largest being 3196 bytes.

There's not a lot else to say about this emulator really, it's more a novelty than anything else. You can experience the true feeling of pong in two colours and a beep on your Acorn, but other than that, it's a bit limited. It has to be the smallest emulator on the Acorn yet, although my Babe emulator is emulating a more simple system, but includes a full wimp front end, assembler, debugger etc.

Speed Rating: ARM 3

Chip 8 (30Kb ZIP file)
TopixWEB's page

Software:
Paul Robson's Chip8 pages - DOS emulator and software
Another PC Chip8 emulator
Marcel de Kogel's Chip8 page