Abstract:

The educational programs of degrees in Computer Engineering rely on emulators, simulators and simplified tools to teach students fundamental concepts. Current commercial pieces of hardware and software are usually too sophisticated to study. In this context, some old platforms could help teachers to illustrate low-level concepts. This work proposes distributing among the subjects of the Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering several micro-projects related to CHIP-8, a virtual machine from the late seventies.

They are designed to teach students:
i) low-level programming in assembly,
ii) the way in which emulators and simulators are programmed,
iii) the fundamentals of platform-independent software, and
iv) the basic ideas of compiling high-level languages into executable binaries.

Additionally, considering the growing interest in discontinued videogame consoles and retro-gaming, the proposal is also valid to motivate current students and to attract new ones. The projects described in this work are designed as complementary tasks to enrich the selected subjects. Although the educational program considered is that of the University of Almería (Spain), the proposals can be adapted to any other one by identifying the equivalent subjects.

Keywords:

Teaching, Computer Engineering, CHIP-8, emulator, virtual architecture, retro-gaming.