161–170 of 208 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you missed the point, I perceived the question (which I'm asking myself too) how do these differ? What makes one more fun or better than the other?
I use both pico-8 and tic-80. I like both of them, but I like pico-8 better. Why? Aesthetics pretty much - and isn’t that enough? These aren’t tools to get things done; they are more like songs you listen to.
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…
>Pico-8 was and is one of the most pleasant pieces of software I have used Indeed, but I have a gripe with it that I cannot get over, the editor's font is too damn hard to read, I tried get used to it but to no avail. The games however are very playable, fun, inspiring and the community couldn't be better.
I'm too spoiled by modern text editors to accept the embedded one for any long time
I've been playing with this for 30 minutes, and I'm still smiling my head off. It's just so much fun. I have used Pico-8 a bunch in the past (so it was easy to jump into making stuff). Pico-8 is one of four bits of software that I put it in my basket of "software that sparks joy" along with Aesprite, Blender, and Propellorhead's Rebirth. Pico-8 had so much care put into its goals and intentional limitations: and so f…
> "software that sparks joy" I too put Aesprite in this category, but the big one for me is Godot. After years of from-scratch OpenGl projects and dabbling with Unity, I leaned into Godot 100% around 2020, and ever since it has been my #1 joy-sparking piece of software.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't buy that argument – why shouldn't I donate to TIC-80 instead, since it has the potential of reaching also children whose parents don't have $15 burning a hole in their pockets? I'm not trying to be contrary, I'm really just trying to find what the unique thing about PICO-8 is since nobody has been able to articulate it, yet many people appear to feel it.
Why not both? If you can afford it, of course.
But GGP made the argument out to be altruistic, that paying for one over the other is because it's better for the world. If that is the motivation, I would want to donate however much I could afford to the one with highest impact!
I had a good time with PICO-8 - and I think it retains its core appeal - but I've moved on to "genuine" retro hardware with the new crop of machines like CX16, Mega65, or my personal choice, Agon Light. The specification ends up being tighter when there's a board design, chips and I/O ports, and these new machines, like Picotron, are relatively uncompromised in what they can achieve within the I/O spec. You can emula…
> but I've moved on to "genuine" retro hardware with the new crop of machines like CX16, Mega65, or my personal choice, Agon Light. I just wish these would move on from the same crop of retro CPUs (z80, 6502, maybe 8080) and clone VDPs on FPGA. I want a retro- style 2d/blit-based machine, but with more advanced hardware. Maybe a Cortex-M, z8000, 68000, low-end Risc-V, etc. Still give it BASIC in a boot ROM, but some…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious how old your kids were when they started hacking on PICO-8 code? My son (7yo) likes block-based programming (using Scratch, Scratch Jr and Octostudio) and Minecraft, but I'm wondering what a smooth on-ramp might be for PICO-8 or similar. I got my first computer when I was about 10yo, so I was content to read through the books that came with it to learn the basics of BASIC and a little 6502 assembly. But I…
My kids are 12 and 14 and I can't get them interested in coding beyond what they might do at school. They showed an interest in Scratch, but I believe I introduced it WAY too early. Moreover, it moved them too quickly past the creative aspects and into writing code. Also, years later, I showed them PICO-8 and they weren't terribly interested. In hindsight, I would recommend working with them at a young age ( Then, le…
I had a good time with PICO-8 - and I think it retains its core appeal - but I've moved on to "genuine" retro hardware with the new crop of machines like CX16, Mega65, or my personal choice, Agon Light. The specification ends up being tighter when there's a board design, chips and I/O ports, and these new machines, like Picotron, are relatively uncompromised in what they can achieve within the I/O spec. You can emula…
> but I've moved on to "genuine" retro hardware with the new crop of machines like CX16, Mega65, or my personal choice, Agon Light. I just wish these would move on from the same crop of retro CPUs (z80, 6502, maybe 8080) and clone VDPs on FPGA. I want a retro- style 2d/blit-based machine, but with more advanced hardware. Maybe a Cortex-M, z8000, 68000, low-end Risc-V, etc. Still give it BASIC in a boot ROM, but some…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that they seemingly write all this stuff from a sailboat makes it even cooler.
I want to thank you. Your comment sent me down an hours long rabbit hole (pun intended) last night into their collective and I've frittered away many more this morning pricing out sailboats I can't afford! Thank you so much <3
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but I've moved on to "genuine" retro hardware with the new crop of machines like CX16, Mega65, or my personal choice, Agon Light. I just wish these would move on from the same crop of retro CPUs (z80, 6502, maybe 8080) and clone VDPs on FPGA. I want a retro- style 2d/blit-based machine, but with more advanced hardware. Maybe a Cortex-M, z8000, 68000, low-end Risc-V, etc. Still give it BASIC in a boot ROM, but some…
Something like an STM32 Discovery board is a good option for recapturing the mid-90s magic. You can get a ~200-MHz Cortex-M4 or M7 with a few MB of flash, external SDRAM, and a display for less than $100. They have really basic hardware 2D accelerators. The on-chip peripherals are well-documented, but off-chip peripherals require some digging to figure out how to program correctly. You can debug with GDB surprisingly…
> 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.