chalk/README.md

chalk

Chalk is a basic compiler from a toy language into CHIP-8 bytecode. It supports some higher-level constructs like looks and if-statements, and has some higher-level functions for drawing numbers and sprites.

Installation

To compile chalk, simply run

crystal build --release src/chalk.cr

Usage

Syntax

Chalk has minimal syntax. All code goes into functions, which are declared as follows:

fun function(param, another_param): return_type {

}

All parameters are assumed to be of type u8, an unsigned byte. The return type can be either u8 or u0, the latter being the same as void in C. Users can declare variables using the var keyword:

var name = 5;

Assigning to existing variables is performed as such:

name = 6;

It's possible to call another function, which uses the CHIP-8 stack. This stack is used exclusively for function calls, and may not exceed 12, as per the specifications of the CHIP-8 virtual machine.

var result = double(name);

Additionally, to ensure that user-defined variables stored in registers are not modified, chalk uses its own custom stack, placed at the end of the program. This stack is accessed by modifying a stack pointer register, which holds the offset from the beginning of the stack. Because CHIP-8 registers can only hold up 8-bit unsinged numbers, the stack is therefore limited to 254 items.

If statements take "truthy" values to be those that have a nonzero value. As such, if (0) {} will never run, while while(5) {} will never terminate. Input can be awaited using the get_key function, which returns the number of the next key pressed.

Sprites can be declared using a quasi-visual syntax:

sprite dum [
`  x  x  `
`  x  x  `
`  x  x  `
`        `
`x      x`
` xxxxxx `
]

These sprites can then be used in calls to draw_sprite(sprite, x, y).

Contributing

1. Fork it (https://github.com/DanilaFe/chalk/fork)
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create a new Pull Request

Contributors

• DanilaFe Danila Fedorin - creator, maintainer