BLbluedino·Nov 28, 2016
Try making a small virtual machine first - https://github.com/tekknolagi/carp/blob/master/README.md
In LaiNES – Cycle-accurate NES emulator in around 1000 lines of codetekknolagi
carp
C2014–2016
tekknolagi / carp · Archived
carp
"interesting" VM in C. Let's see how this goes.
4Distinct people
8Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
985GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
"interesting" VM in C. Let's see how this goes.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year8 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2014-03-06 02:55:37 UTC to 2016-11-28 02:17:57 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 1 | 6 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
8 sourcesI have been working on a small virtual machine called Carp. Right now I am working on writing my own tokenizer (as opposed to relying upon strtok()) and lexer, and then also a bytecode reader/writer.
http://github.com/tekknolagi/carp
In Ask HN: What have you been working on this summer?Seems like [1] could benefit from use of the X macro [2], should make adding new instructions much easier and you can avoid the hassle of having to keep two separate tables in sync. There's probably quite a few places where the code could be made clearer by using it. Also in the implementation of your functions, there's a hell of a lot of repetition in all the binary operations, another macro which you pass in the operation and the function name would make life earier:
#define binop(NAME, OP) definstr (NAME) { \
long long b, a; \
if (carp_stack_pop(&m->stack, &b) == -1)\
carp_vm_err(m, CARP_STACK_EMPTY);\
if (carp_stack_pop(&m->stack, &a) == -1)\
carp_vm_err(m, CARP_STACK_EMPTY);\
carp_stack_push(&m->stack, a OP b);}
binop(ADD,+)
binop(MUL,*)
...
The repetition
Read the rest
of
if (carp_stack_pop(&m->stack, &a) == -1)
carp_vm_err(m, CARP_STACK_EMPTY);
seems like a good place to just use a function to encapsulate all the error checking and handling.
[1] https://github.com/tekknolagi/carp/blob/master/src/carp_inst...
[2] http://www.embedded.com/design/programming-languages-and-too... and the following parts
Can you give some directions for how to run it?
$ git clone https://github.com/tekknolagi/carp
$ make
$ ./carp
$ ./carp --help # after peeking in carp.c
help msg
There's a tantalizing target called 'tests' in the Makefile, but it doesn't work.
There's some examples, but no makefile to build them. How do you run them?
I see you used to have some .carp files but you just deleted them: https://github.com/tekknolagi/carp/commit/fa16eeb443
I tried restoring one, but it doesn't work:
$ git checkout fa16eeb443~1 examples/reg.carp
$ ./carp -f examples/reg.carp
Unknown label <add>
So at this point I'm ready to give up..
In Show HN: A small virtual machine written in CShow HN: A small virtual machine written in C
212 points · Open discussionHi there! If you like C, I'm working on a small (like REALLY small) virtual machine called Carp.
I've no idea what I'm going to do with it, so feel free to chip in!
http://github.com/tekknolagi/carp
In Ask HN: What next? Seeking ideas for my next projectI am working on a small virtual machine in C, called Carp.
It's cool because I am learning about C, a bit about asm, and a bit about how a simple CPU works. Ish.
I also got a bit acquainted with comp.lang.c :)
http://github.com/tekknolagi/carp
In Ask HN: What are you working on and why is it cool?I am working on a small VM called Carp. It's pretty darn limited but as of now looks kind of like MSP430 (from TI). Take a look:
http://github.com/tekknolagi/carp
In Ask HN: Show us your work in progress