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Chip8 is a rather obscure virtual machine written for the long forgotten COSMAC VIP. The virtual machine has 35 opcodes making it an ideal first emulation project.

High level assemblers exist for the chip8, but not high level programming languages mainly due to limited stack space.

Fortunately, with a bit of craftsmanship, a B-Like programming language is fully feasible, barring pointers, of course.

Take the following addition function:

add(a, b) { return a + b; }

Here it is called with a bit of stack noise.

main() { auto a = 7; auto b = 8; auto c = add(1, 2); auto d = 9; while(1) { // Never leave main } }

Chip8 reserves address space 0x000 - 0x1FF for the interpreter on the COSMAC VIP system. The first 80 bytes of this address range is reserved for 16 sprite fonts (0-F, including F), allowing the following set of opcodes to store general purpose registers V0-VE (including VE) right after the sprite fonts:

LD VE, 0x10 ; (6XKK) LD F, VE ; (FX29) Works with multiples of five (0x10 * 5 == 80) LD [I], VE ; (FX55)

VF is not included as it doubles as a scratchpad and V0-VE is fifteen bytes - a multiple of three.

To store the next stack, change the address pointer I by 15 bytes (multiple of five three times) and push.

LD VF, 0x03 ; (6XKK) ADD VE, VF ; (8XY4) LD F, VE ; (FX29) LD [I], VE ; (FX55)

Popping a previously stored stack works the same but in reverse:

LD VF, 0x03 ; (6XKK) SUB VE, VF ; (8XY5) LD F, VE ; (FX29) LD VE, [I] ; (FX65)

Optionally, before popping a previously stored stack, a value can be saved in VF.

LD VF, 0x03 ; (6XKK) SUB VE, VF ; (8XY5) LD VF, V2 ; (8XY0) Saving V2 in VF LD F, VE ; (FX29) LD VE, [I] ; (FX65)

Stringing these ideas together, functions can be built with a bit of register management. Looking at main():

main() { auto a = 7; auto b = 8; auto c = add(1, 2); auto d = 9; while(1) { // Never leave main } }

When compiled without any sort of optimization, this may become:

main: LD VE,0x10 ; Initial setup for call stacks - lets I point to location after sprite fonts LD V0,0x07 ; auto a = 7 LD V1,0x08 ; auto b = 8 LD V2,0x01 ; 1st argument to add() LD V3,0x02 ; 2nd argument to add() LD F,VE ; Stack push LD [I],VE LD VF,0x03 ADD VE,VF LD V0,V2 ; Transfer by value arguments for function call LD V1,V3 CALL add ; Call the add function LD V2,VF ; Copy return value stored in VF to V2 LD V3,0x09 ; auto d = 9 WHILE7: LD V4,0x01 ; while(1) SNE V4,0x00 ; { JP END7 ; // Never leave main JP WHILE7 ; } END7:

Returning to the add function, this:

add(a, b) { return a + b; }

May compile into:

add: LD V2,V0 ; Scratchpad copy LD V3,V1 ; Scratchpad copy ADD V2,V3 ; Do the addition LD VF,0x03 ; Prepare stack pop SUB VE,VF LD VF,V2 ; Save to VF for return LD F,VE ; Stack pop LD VE,[I] RET

A beasty yet plausible solution to function calls on the chip8’s extremely limited platform. Unfortunately this does not work for all data types other that word size of chip8 (one byte) which makes a full fitting B-Implementation (not including pointers) feasible. Have you an actual COSMAC running the chip8 virtual machine with this code beware that the stack frames may clobber the virtual machine itself.

Nevertheless, check out c8c - a single portable single source compiler for the chip8 platform. Included is a virtual machine mock-up and assembler to test it out.

The code it generates is dorm room hobby quality serving as a proof of concept. Don’t expect small binaries.