Top all-time · #8746
Tobias V. I. Langhoff
Personal blog · tobiasvl.github.io/blogprogramminggamessystems
Tobias V. I. Langhoff writes Tvil, a personal blog at tobiasvl.github.io about programming, games and systems. Since 2021, 9 different Hacker News readers have linked it 10 times, most often “Guide to making a CHIP-8 emulator (2020)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog as a step-by-step, language-agnostic guide to writing a CHIP-8 emulator. Commenters point people to it as a first emulator project.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Tobias V. I. Langhoff’s personal home page and blog
Most-linked posts?
- Guide to making a CHIP-8 emulator (2020)6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2021-10-18
- Emulating the Space Invaders look and feel (2020)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-01-29
What Hacker News says?
I wrote my CHIP-8 emulator in C#, actually. I used the Godot game engine for rendering and sound (though I never actually got around to implementing sound). The language you write it in really doesn't matter too much unless you really care about performance, or if you want to do something fancier than an interpreter (like a JIT recompiler). I used this guide: https://tobiasvl.github.io/blog/write-a-chip-8-emulator/…
Comment linking /blog/write-a-chip-8-emulator/
on “Next steps for Rust in the kernel”Submitted Running CHIP-8 on an HP 48 calculator (2020) as a story · 49 points
HN discussionWrite a CHIP-8 emulator. I followed this [1] language-agnostic guide. It covers all the details and oddities without actually giving you the code, so you still need to make the effort to get the result. [1] https://tobiasvl.github.io/blog/write-a-chip-8-emulator/
Comment linking /blog/write-a-chip-8-emulator/
on “Interview with GDKChan, Creator of Ryujinx, the Nintendo Switch Emulator”Submitted Guide to making a CHIP-8 emulator (2020) as a story · 44 points
HN discussionI always felt it's misleading to display these as white on black. In the original arcade they'd be visually suspended over a painted background, with colored cellophane applied to the glass. http://tipsgeneral.com/how-to/geek-trivia-the-screen-of-spac... Though, having said that, this source I just looked up to get a screenshot suggests that's actually an enhancement added after the initial release. edit to add: a b…
Comment linking /blog/space-invaders/
on “Si78c: Memory-accurate reimplementation of Space Invaders in C”Submitted Guide to making a CHIP-8 emulator (2020) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI've used this guide [1] to help me understand the instructions. 1 - https://tobiasvl.github.io/blog/write-a-chip-8-emulator
Comment linking /blog/write-a-chip-8-emulator
on “Show HN: Chip-8 emulator written in JavaScript”Submitted Emulating the Space Invaders look and feel (2020) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionChip-8 is a great start, it was a virtual machine used for Atari 2600 style games: https://tobiasvl.github.io/blog/write-a-chip-8-emulator/ Basic but still a good first step.
Comment linking /blog/write-a-chip-8-emulator/
on “Gameboy Doctor: debug and fix your gameboy emulator”Hi everyone, this is my first time trying to write an emulator. I followed a online guide [1] to help me out. Had to fiddle with the number of cycles for each frame and I don't think it is quite right yet, but, overall it was a fun project to work on. Hope you like it. 1 - https://tobiasvl.github.io/blog/write-a-chip-8-emulator/
Comment linking /blog/write-a-chip-8-emulator/
on “Show HN: Chip-8 emulator written in JavaScript”