LC-3 Virtual Machine

This repository contains an implementation of the LC-3 (Little Computer 3) Virtual Machine, a 16-bit educational computer architecture. This project is inspired by this blog post and structured with guidance from this repository.

Features

• Implements the LC-3 instruction set, including arithmetic, memory operations, and control flow.
• Supports TRAP routines for input and output operations.
• Uses a fetch-execute cycle to process LC-3 machine code.
• Implements computed GOTO for faster instruction dispatch.
• Supports loading and executing LC-3 object files.

Installation

Ensure you have a C compiler and CMake installed. If not, install them:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install build-essential cmake

Building the Project

Clone the repository and build the project using CMake:

git clone git@github.com:usyntest/lc3-vm.git
cd lc3-vm
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make

Running the Virtual Machine

Once built, you can run an LC-3 object file:

./lc3 ../images/2048.lc3

File Structure

• lc3.c – Main entry point; implements the fetch-execute cycle.
• instruction-set.c – Implements the LC-3 instruction set.
• instruction-set.h – Header file for LC-3 instructions.
• core/ – Contains utility functions for bit manipulation, input buffering, and reading object files.