Picotron Is a Fantasy Workstation • Hacker News Board

Re: Picotron Is a Fantasy Workstation

#21

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 4:49 AM UTC

tazu wrote: post #2

This looks similar to what the cool couple at 100 Rabbits [1] are doing with Uxn. Overall, I love to support anyone producing hobby / cute software (especially with Lua!). [1]: https://100r.co/site/uxn.html

[deleted]

Re: Picotron Is a Fantasy Workstation

#22

Post by ClassyJacket » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 4:53 AM UTC

cubefox wrote: post #14

Does anyone also think these "is a" headlines violate commonly accepted headline rules? Arguably it should read: "Picotron, a Fantasy Workstation"

What rule?

Re: Picotron Is a Fantasy Workstation

#23

Post by chawyehsu » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 4:54 AM UTC

tomtheelder wrote: post #11

snvzz wrote: post #8

I'd rather one of the many open source alternatives to that ecosystem.

Do you have any examples? I’m pretty curious about Picotron, but would love to try an OSS alternative.

There are plenty of alternatives you could find on [1] in the context of fantasy console, almost all of them, oss or proprietary, active or dormant. And honestly many of them were inspired by PICO-8.

Disclaimer: I'm one of the contributors of the list of [2].

[1]: https://github.com/paladin-t/fantasy

[2]: https://github.com/pico-8/awesome-PICO-8

Re: Picotron Is a Fantasy Workstation

#24

Post by Toorkit » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 5:07 AM UTC

PostOnce wrote: post #4

Pico-8 was and is one of the most pleasant pieces of software I have used. I can only imagine the wonders the community will produce for this thing. Of course, despite the machine itself (pico 8 that is, and this thing too) being proprietary, all the user-programs are source-available if not open source. It's really educational and I love it. There will be compatible implementations of this thing, but the pico-8 tool…

The Pico-8 is great, but https://tic80.com/ is really cool too.

Re: Picotron Is a Fantasy Workstation

#25

Post by esbeeb » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 5:12 AM UTC

When I use Raspberry Pi OS in a Raspberry Pi 4, 8GB of RAM - I feel I already have an excellent, refreshingly stable, late-90s-era experience. It scratches that strange nostalgia itch for that more innocent experience - of early-times WIMP computing.

I can surf the web, edit LibreOffice files, record audio in Audacity on my nice Rode microphone, watch video files in VLC, remotely VNC in, transfer files in and out over SSH's SFTP, etc.

Pretty much all that's really missing, to fill it out, is Zoom (or some such functional equivalent) with a fast-enough frame rate on video calls. And this is not, strictly speaking, the fault of Raspberry Pi, et al.

Re: Picotron Is a Fantasy Workstation

#26

Post by contrarian1234 » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 5:18 AM UTC

esbeeb wrote: post #25

When I use Raspberry Pi OS in a Raspberry Pi 4, 8GB of RAM - I feel I already have an excellent, refreshingly stable , late-90s-era experience. It scratches that strange nostalgia itch for that more innocent experience - of early-times WIMP computing. I can surf the web, edit LibreOffice files, record audio in Audacity on my nice Rode microphone, watch video files in VLC, remotely VNC in, transfer files in and out ov…

I used 8GB RAM till recently and I've found it more and more untenable. The primary issue is the browser. Even now on 16GB I restart Firefox every couple of days. But other things also eat RAM like crazy

Running Emacs/Cider I'd have to kill other apps and reboot my REPL a couple times a day. Emacs would also leak memory and need a restart every couple of days

Re: Picotron Is a Fantasy Workstation

#27

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 5:23 AM UTC

contrarian1234 wrote: post #26

esbeeb wrote: post #25

When I use Raspberry Pi OS in a Raspberry Pi 4, 8GB of RAM - I feel I already have an excellent, refreshingly stable , late-90s-era experience. It scratches that strange nostalgia itch for that more innocent experience - of early-times WIMP computing. I can surf the web, edit LibreOffice files, record audio in Audacity on my nice Rode microphone, watch video files in VLC, remotely VNC in, transfer files in and out ov…

I used 8GB RAM till recently and I've found it more and more untenable. The primary issue is the browser. Even now on 16GB I restart Firefox every couple of days. But other things also eat RAM like crazy Running Emacs/Cider I'd have to kill other apps and reboot my REPL a couple times a day. Emacs would also leak memory and need a restart every couple of days

Really? I can only hold one firefox session at a time in 8GB of RAM, but I've always assumed that's because I keep an unreasonable number of active+background tabs open.

Re: Picotron Is a Fantasy Workstation

#28

Post by ggm » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 5:25 AM UTC

QR codes on cardboard slid under a cheap reader slot? cannot go past the 8 bit feel demanding some phsicality behind the thing. Lo-fi screen and giant buttons to mash..

Re: Picotron Is a Fantasy Workstation

#29

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 5:26 AM UTC

> CPU: 8M Lua VM insts / second

Is that ballpark, or throttled for consistency? The FAQ has a "How Fast is the CPU?" item, but that just discusses being fast and faster than PICO-8.

Re: Picotron Is a Fantasy Workstation

#30

Post by PostOnce » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 5:27 AM UTC

Toorkit wrote: post #24

PostOnce wrote: post #4

Pico-8 was and is one of the most pleasant pieces of software I have used. I can only imagine the wonders the community will produce for this thing. Of course, despite the machine itself (pico 8 that is, and this thing too) being proprietary, all the user-programs are source-available if not open source. It's really educational and I love it. There will be compatible implementations of this thing, but the pico-8 tool…

The Pico-8 is great, but https://tic80.com/ is really cool too.

TIC-80 is cool, but it's a clone of PICO-8, and like Doom clones, some of them are great, but they're still not Doom.