[HN Gopher] Octo: A Chip8 IDE
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       Octo: A Chip8 IDE
        
       Author : tosh
       Score  : 74 points
       Date   : 2025-12-06 11:17 UTC (6 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | anthk wrote:
       | 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
       | 
       | 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
        
       | throwaway613745 wrote:
       | 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 wrote:
         | pico 8 still does not have an Android version for some reason.
        
           | Tiberium wrote:
           | 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 wrote:
       | 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
       | 
       | [1] https://github.com/agentultra/zig8
        
         | RodgerTheGreat wrote:
         | Yes. I consider Octo feature-complete, but I still address bug
         | reports.
        
           | agentultra wrote:
           | That's awesome! Also thanks for making Octo.
        
         | azhenley wrote:
         | 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
        
       | flykespice wrote:
       | 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
        
         | RodgerTheGreat wrote:
         | 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.
        
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       (page generated 2025-12-12 23:01 UTC)