I wrote a custom assembler for CHIP-8 in C++
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I'm writing a custom assembler for CHIP-8 and just finished adding support for the DB/.byte directive so I can embed sprites in the ROM and finally get something drawn on the screen. It SHOULD support all OG CHIP-8 instructions, but still a ton of rough edges that I'm ironing out.This is my first ever C++ project, just like the CHIP-8 emulator was my first ever C (and emudev) project. It's so satisfying to write assembly and have your program spit out a ROM that actually runs in the emulator you wrote.All code is written by me (a lot of it livestreaming) as evident by the quality, no AI.
HN · launched Sep 17, 2026 · 28 upvotes (top 21%) · 0 views
Niche: programming language compilers · 77 launches, 2 in the last 7 days ▼ -60% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Dev tools
- Developer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 77 launches in programming language compilers →
Could you build this?
Yes A CHIP-8 assembler is an introductory computer science project with a simple instruction set (only 35 opcodes) that modern AI models can generate and debug effortlessly.
Discussion
4 comments analyzed.
Concerns raised: out-of-bounds RAM access bug in 'I' register
Competitors
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Attention rank: #72 of 235 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 323 days after the earliest competitor.
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