NMOS 6502 in Rust

Another 6502 Emulator?

Yes! But wait, here's why you may want this one:

• no_std compatible
• Minimal dependencies (only num_enum as a preprocessor for Opcodes)
• Works in both Big Endian and Little Endian environments
• Passes the Klaus2m5 Functional Test Suite for 6502 Processors
• Supports IRQ and NMI interrupts
• Tested on various systems including Mac, PC and Embedded RP2040
• Accurate cycle count exposed after each instruction

This implementation covers all standard opcodes for the NMOS 6502 and all the "illegal" NOP equivalents. Unrecognized opcodes are exposed for debugging purposes and will be implemented at a later time.

Quick Start

This library is only the CPU. In a 6502 system the CPU is always in charge of the current address of the bus. Basic usage is as follows:

let cpu = Nmos6502::new();

loop {
    // "bus" is any struct
    // that implements: BusInterface
    cpu.tick(&mut bus); 
}

The CPU send and receives data via a BusInterface, which the crate user must implement themselves. At its most rudimentary, an implementation could simply allocate a blank 64k array of u8 and return/write the indexed value.

BusInterface must fundamentally provide:

fn get_byte_at(&mut self, addr:u16) -> u8;
fn set_byte_at(&mut self, addr:u16, byte: u8);

Further Details

The 6502 will use the default RESET vector of 0xFFFC-0xFFFD. That is, whatever value the BusInterface returns for that address will be where the cpu sets its Program Counter.

In more complex systems, eg., an Apple ][ emulator, you may implement whatever clever system you like to intercept/distribute any request via BusInterface to various subsystems.

For efficiency/speed, you may optionally override

fn get_pipelined_bytes(&mut self, addr:u16) -> (u8, u8, u8)

Which is utilized to retrieve the current opcode and the next two bytes as possible operands. This is only of use if you have a way to actually pipeline these bytes (eg., a system which can send a 24bit+ word in one instruction) or if you need to avoid extraneous memory accesses which might trigger eg., softswitches. The default implementation simply uses get_byte_at with a wrapping increment on the address.