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Ahoy! — The CHIP-8 Emulator and -Toolchain

Ahoy! (the ‘!’ is part of the name) is a CHIP-8 emulator and -toolchain. As of writing, the following binaries exist as part of the Ahoy! distribution:

  • ahoy — GUI emulator
  • c8asm — CHIP-8 assembler
  • c8dump — CHIP-8 disassembler

Where does the name come from?

The ‘Chips Ahoy!’ cookies I enjoyed as a child.

Building and Installation

The entire project can be built with a C23 compiler:

$ cc -std=c23 -o make make.c
$ ./make          # compile everything
$ ./make install  # install everything

The following flags can be provided to the build script:

  • -f / --force: force a complete rebuild
  • -r / --release: build with optimizations enabled

Documentation

All programs in the Ahoy! collection are documented via manual pages. You can read them either with the man command, or by passing the -h/--help flag to the given program.

Potential Future Plans?

  • TUI emulator via ncurses
  • Compiler for a C-like higher-level language
  • SCHIP support
  • Handheld emulator on an embedded system