[Coco] Re: CHIP-8 emulator for Coco

[David]

Thanks for your reply, Brett!

As you said, most on the website are for S-CHIP - I'm primarilly focussing
on the previous version of the standard, CHIP-8
Apart from sheer laziness, this decision was primary based on the graphics
resolution of the CHIP-8 standard - 64x32. This just happens to fit nicely
on the semigraphics-4 text mode 32x16 on the Coco2

Once I have the CHIP-8 emulator up and running, I may expand into S-CHIP.
This would require moving to a graphics-based display - perhaps the
non-basic 128 x 64 mode, or even 128 x 96 PMODE 0 .

The main differences between the standards are the graphics mode, and a few
extra features like larger in-built fonts, scrolling commands, etc

I have no concerns as to whether the Coco2 is up to the challenge of running
the CHIP-8/SCHIP systems - the only problem could be my programming skills!
(sketchy at best, as I'm learning 6809 ASM as I go along on this project!)

As for the source code, that's not a problem either.. I've written a little
disassembler for the Coco that reads the CHIP-8 roms and outputs the object
and disassembled source code to screen or printer as selected - its not too
hard to identify whats happening after a bit of investigation and manual
addition of labels :)

Here's to a productive new year for the Coco!

Regards,
David



> Sorry this is late but I've been out of touch over the holidays.
>
> I've used SCHIP to play Joust on my HP48 and it runs really well, which
> probably means the coco could handle it also.
>
> While I haven't done anything personally with CHIP8/SCHIP the HP48(9)
> still has an active user community (not unlike the coco:-) and they might
> be able to help you get more info. There is a software archive at
>
> http://www.hpcalc.org
>
> which has several implementations of the SCHIP emulator (including bundled
> in games). A quick browse didn't turn up any source listings (these
> archives are meant to be downloaded to the calc over a slow serial link)
> but you could contact the authors and ask. Just do a search from the main
page
> for "SCHIP" to find what's there.
>
> You might also look at the archives for comp.sys.hp48 and/or ask there.
>
> I may have some stuff on my home machine, I'll check tonight.
>
> HTH
>
> Brett K. Heath
>
>
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