Specifications

Chapter 12. Plugins 109
12.3.2. Chip-8 Emulator
Chip8 is a kind of assembly language for a long-gone architecture. This plugin runs
games written using the chip8 instructions. To start a game open a .ch8 file in the File
Browser
There are lots of tiny Chip8 games (usually only about 256 bytes to a couple of KB)
which were made popular by the HP48 calculator’s emulator for them. The original
Chip8 had 64×32 pixel graphics, and the new superchip emulator supports 128×64
graphics.
The only problem is that they are based on a 4×4 keyboard, but since most games do
not use all of the buttons, this can easily be worked around.
To do this, one may put a .c8k file with the same name as the original program
which contains new key mappings (for BLINKY.ch8, one writes a BLINKY.c8k file). That
.c8k file contains 16 characters describing the mapping from the Chip8 keyboard to
the default key mapping (that way, several Chip8 keys can be pressed using only one
Rockbox key). For example, a file containing the single line:
Code
0122458469ABCDEF
would correspond to the following non-default mappings:
3 → 2, 6 → 8, 7 →4, 8 → 6.
The default keymappings are:
Chip8 Off 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
Key Off F1 Up F3 Left Play Right F2 Down On
Some places where can you can find .ch8 files:
• The PluginChip8 page on www.rockbox.org has several attached: ZPluginChip8
• Check out the HP48 chip games section: http://www.hpcalc.org/hp48/games/chip/
• PC emulator by the guy who wrote the HP48 emulator: http://www.pdc.kth.se/
~lfo/chip8/CHIP8.htm
• Links to other chip8 emulators: http://www.zophar.net/chip8.html
12.3.3. Frotz
Frotz is a Z-Machine interpreter for playing Infocom’s interactive fiction games, and
newer games using the same format. To start a game open a .z1 - .z8 file in the File
The Rockbox manual (version rUnversioned directory-150515) Archos Recorder