6502 CPU/NES Emulator (Project)

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Been a long time since I’ve been on here (not that I’ve ever been very active), but thought I’d share a project I’ve been working on for a while. If it’s ever fully complete it will be a functioning NES emulator, but honestly that’s mostly an excuse to emulate the 6502 CPU. Here’s a screenshot I have of it and a link to the git (C++)

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Currently I’m just working my way though completing the rest of the opcodes. I’m probably 1/3 of the way through them, but I had a lot of initial setup, both with just getting the code execution and testing that wasn’t verbose af.

Few interesting points of note:

  • Everything is in C++, only imported libraries are ncurses, and when I get to actual graphics, X11
  • Beyond just the functionality of each opcode, I also have to make sure I emulate the correct cycle count as well.

Didn’t really have any intent other than sharing my project (sadly I realize I’ve come back too late to win cool prizes). Would love to answer any questions or just generally talk about related topics.

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What made you want to start on this type of project? It seems very niche so I’m intrigued what drew you to learning about the CPU and how it operates.

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Generally that low level kind of stuff has always interested me. At one point I had Computer/Electrical engineering as my 2nd major before realizing I didn’t want to spend another year or two in college for something I wouldn’t use in the jobs I was looking for.

This project in specific had some inspirations from a series with a 6502 chip I watched from Ben Eater, along with a video I watched about half of from javidx9 building a NES emulator (hence seeing my opportunity). Both excellent channels, would check them out if you’re curious.

I also feel like it’s somewhat related to liking Formal Language and compilers, although that has yet to amount to more than doing some cool code analysis at work with Roslyn.

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That’s so awesome to hear! Thank you for typing up such a detailed response it was really interesting to read.