Core War was inspired by a malicious virus written in the 80’s. To deal with the self-replicating virus, a white hat hacker invented Reaper. It was a virus designed to spread and eliminate the malware. He fought fire with fire.

This inspired A. K. Dewdney to coin the idea for Core War.

The idea was simple. You compete by designing viruses to overtake a computer. You win by protecting your own program and overwriting your opponent's programs. This is all happening on a virtual computer. Think, a simple computer within your computer.

This is what is looks like in action:

Clone and Make:

git clone https://github.com/AidanSully/Corewar/ && Corewar && make && make clean

Launch program without params to get help:

-dump <num> : Dump memory (32 octets per line) after <num> cycles and exit
-v : Run visualizer
-n <num> : Set <num> of the next player
Example:
./corewar -v champions/bee_gees.cor champions/zork.cor champions/bigzork.cor champions/helltrain.cor
You can use champions with extention .cor from champions folder.
You can compile .s files with the asm
You can dissamble .cor files with the dsm