Emulator Programming - Noob

[_Zack_]

Hello. I have no previous experience in programming, i would like to start a Very Small emulator project using visual basic program language. can someone please advise me on A : An Easy Console to Emulate, B: How to go about it & C: What documentation i would need. Any help would be greatly appreciated, Because i have taken so much from the emulation scene and would love to give something back.

[Garstyciuks]

As everyone else would say - making an emulator as your first project with no previous coding experience is just not that easy. First you have to learn the basics of the language, some API and other stuff. Probably the easiest machine to emulate is Chip8, you can find all the information on it in the Chip8 sticky.

[bcrew1375]

You'll need to be able to do shift operations for most. Didn't someone say Visual Basic doesn't support shift? You can probably replace this by multiplying by 2 and dividing by two, but it might not give correct results all the time. I'd think, as a bare minimum for any language you would need to know file input, memory handling, basic mathematical operations, graphical output, bitwise operations and knowledge of how bits work, branching/conditional commands, and user input even for Chip-8.

[Doomulation]

A shift can be performed with the following mathematic formula:
Val * 2 ^ n. Where n is number of shifts. For example, to shift left 2 times, try Val * 2 ^ 2. Same as Val >> 2.
For right shifts, use divide instead.

VB supports binary and or and xor.

[Toasty]

I'd definitely not do an emulator as a first programming project. Get comfortable with whatever language you'll be using first (C and C++ are the most common, but VB will work fine for starters). Then, after you can talk computer fluently, try out Chip8 like Garstyciuks suggested. Just check the Chip8 sticky at the top of this forum for all the documentation you'll need.

[Doomulation]

A chip8 emulator is pretty easy as long as you use a tutorial and are able to learn. You'll learn a lot, and it isn't that hard.
Well, that is, unless you want to make it bugfree and work with every game.