The Pulse of the Machine
Every processor is a heartbeat. In each cycle, it fetches an opcode from memory, decodes what it means, and executes the logic. To emulate a CPU, we must recreate this cycle in software, often with a giant `switch` statement or a lookup table.
Watch how the Program Counter increments and registers change as the emulator "interprets" raw binary data.
The Geometry of Information
A CPU doesn't know what a "controller" or "screen" is. It only knows memory addresses. Through Memory-Mapped I/O, writing to a specific address like `0x2000` might actually be talking to the graphics chip. We must build a virtual "Bus" that routes data to the correct device.
A visualization of 64KB address space. High-speed writes simulate a running game's data flow.
Drawing with Electrons
Retro consoles didn't have "framebuffers" in the modern sense. They drew to the screen one scanline at a time, racing the electron beam of a CRT. Emulating a PPU (Picture Processing Unit) requires precise timing to match the horizontal and vertical synchronization of old displays.
Observe the raster beam's journey as it reconstructs an image pixel by pixel.