🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <9...@massey.ac.nz> ABi...@massey.ac.nz (A.G. Bishop) writes:
>Hi Andreas,
>
>>These computers all used (among others) a programming language called
>>CHIP-8.  This is a small, interpreted language designed specifically
>>?for writing video games on 1802-based computers.

I'm pretty sure the CHIP-8 interpreter was marketed by RCA with their
VIP personal computer.  It was indeed a kind of simplified machine code,
but the instruction set had a strong resemblence to 1802 machine language.
The VIP was significantly different from the other 1802 computers
of its day.  I think it had a fairly sophisticated ROM monitor.
I never heard of CHIP-8 being ported to any Elf or any other kind of CPU.

>I don't have any of the s/ware now but I used CHIP-8 about 1980 on a
>DREAM (don't ask me what that stood for).  It used a motorola 6802
>processor and used cheap video.                               ^^^^

Are you sure this wasn't an 1802?  RCA had a companion chip, the 1861,
which could do bitmapped graphics with the processor's main memory.  It
would interrupt the 1802 for each frame and DMA the bits out of its
memory and right onto the screen.  It used about half of the CPU's
cycles, but the circuitry cost less than $20.  Cramming the video
interrupt routine, a game, and the 128-byte screen bitmap into a
256-byte Elf was a character-building experience.

    -- Larry