I built a handheld CHIP-8 game console to teach myself embedded systems
A while back I wrote a CHIP-8 emulator (which is considered the Hello, World! of emulators and is more accurately a virtual machine since historically CHIP-8 was an interpreted language running on top of the COSMAC VIP to make game programming easier). But a few months ago I got really interested in embedded software, so decided it would be neat to port my emulator to a STM32 MCU and design a console around it as a learning experience, since CHIP-8 never existed as a physical system. I didn't know much about embedded software when I began, and even less about electronics, but I managed to…
In plain words
This is a handheld game console built around a CHIP-8 virtual machine emulator ported to an STM32 microcontroller. The maker designed it as a learning project to teach themselves embedded systems and electronics, writing the firmware from scratch and designing the custom PCB. The project includes documentation, a development blog, and a build guide on GitHub for others interested in emulation and embedded development.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
A while back I wrote a CHIP-8 emulator (which is considered the Hello, World! of emulators and is more accurately a virtual machine since historically CHIP-8 was an interpreted language running on top of the COSMAC VIP to make game programming easier). But a few months ago I got really interested in embedded software, so decided it would be neat to port my emulator to a STM32 MCU and design a console around it as a learning experience, since CHIP-8 never existed as a physical system. I didn't know much about embedded software when I began, and even less about electronics, but I managed to write all the firmware from scratch and even designed my first PCB, resulting in a finished (though not very polished) handheld CHIP-8 console. For those curious, the GitHub repo also has links to my dev blog about the project as well as a build guide. Thanks for looking!
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