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The PICO-8 language is just Lua with some minor syntactic sugar. It's also worth noting that TIC-80 has a $5 "PRO" version; the free (as in no cost) and open source version is basically shareware.
From the README: > For users who can't spend the money, we made it easy to build the pro version from the source code. So the pro version is still FOSS, their builds are just not gratis.
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The PICO-8 is where the current trend for fantasy consoles began. There's a growing number of them (I'm making one myself). They all have slightly different areas of focus. Some are scripting language based, some emulate CPUs. TIC-80 programs are "64KB of Lua or Moonscript or JavaScript". My own is 8-bit AVR (128k rom, 64k ram). Z80 seems a popular base as well.
Celeste, which was released to rave reviews this past year for the Switch, started life as a PICO-8 game. I played it on the PICO-8 at first and was blown away! Enjoy: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=2145
I'm actually in the process of making SlipWays, a fast-paced 4X game for PC that started as a PICO-8 prototype (https://krajzeg.itch.io/slipways). A major reason for the tight game design of the game were the tight confines on the console.
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Indeed, for an 8x8 pixel font one can't really go wrong with something more similar to what was used in the early microcomputers: https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/ Edit: it actually looks like a 5x7, in which case the best font would probably be something like the 5x7 a lot of character LCDs use: https://www.pjrc.com/mp3/lcdfont2a.jpg
I don’t remember them being that annoying in the 80s, or maybe we just read less text back then.
I'm trying to remember how much we squeezed out of a Dragon32 'high resolution' mode, 256x192 pixels, I think it was 64 characters by 27 lines or so at 4x7 (that's really not the nicest font). Hard to read but the increased linecount made it worth it and eventually you got used to it.
Before that it felt like looking at your code through a keyhole.
My first 'decent' screen was an Atari ST at 640x400. That was such a huge step up. And after that ever improving Tseng cards in a 286 based PC, that's when 132 colums became workable.
Funniest thing though, for a long time I thought there never would be enough characters on a screen and now my eyes have gone so far backwards that I have to use a 32" screen with huge fonts to get anything done at all. I'll probably end at a 4x7 font again but with pixels the size of lego bricks.
Does it run on a Pocket C.H.I.P?
Maybe this is a good time to plug PICO-8 which describes itself as a "fantasy console for making, sharing and playing tiny games and other computer programs." https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php I don't even know the difference between the two programs, but someone interested in TIC might also be interested in PICO.
The PICO-8 is where the current trend for fantasy consoles began. There's a growing number of them (I'm making one myself). They all have slightly different areas of focus. Some are scripting language based, some emulate CPUs. TIC-80 programs are "64KB of Lua or Moonscript or JavaScript". My own is 8-bit AVR (128k rom, 64k ram). Z80 seems a popular base as well.
What ram chip are you using? I've been looking at 23K640 but it's proving a nightmare to get running on a breadboard.
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They are conceptually very similar and both obviously inspired by the old CHIP-8. TIC-80 is a bit more 'powerful' in that it's a bit higher resolution with double the sprite count. The most substantial differences: >PICO-8 has its own BASIC-like language >TIC-80 is programmed in Lua or JS > >PICO-8 is commercial software, costs $15 >TIC-80 is open source
PICO-8 uses plain old Lua also; the editor downcases everything on save which is why it seems case-insensitive.
If you are interested in real retro-ish DIY hardware, check out Hackeboy https://program.sha2017.org/events/153.html http://hackefuffel.com/hackeboy0001.html
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Celeste, which was released to rave reviews this past year for the Switch, started life as a PICO-8 game. I played it on the PICO-8 at first and was blown away! Enjoy: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=2145
Do you know how it was ported to the Switch? TIC-80 uses SDL, which doesn't have a working port (for the Switch) so far as I know.
And if you're feeling brave, TIC-80 has a port that uses Brainfuck instead of Lua. [0] [0] https://github.com/lolbot-iichan/TIC-80/wiki