TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System • Hacker News Board

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#21

Post by panic » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 2:19 PM UTC

speeder wrote: post #20

tluyben2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer actual old hardware for that (60-70-80s), that way the results really give some strange satisfaction. Personal ofcourse.

Actual old hardware has a problem though: might me impossible to find. For example I live in Brazil, I learned to code trying to port MSX Basic games to a 286 GWBASIC, because I never saw a msx in person. Also, some other hardware I would love to fool around and never saw one: C64, Amiga, Sega Saturn, 3DO, PC Engine, non-Intel Mac, a real NES (I owned a clone once), programmable calculators.

That's what emulation is for! I know VICE in particular is a very accurate C64 emulator.

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#22

Post by swozey » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 2:25 PM UTC

I bought their newer game, Shenzhen I/O last night and it is very cool. It's still early access but I've been enjoying it. http://store.steampowered.com/app/504210/

Edit: Just realized there's a post about shenzhen too, woops.

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#23

Post by tluyben2 » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 2:41 PM UTC

speeder wrote: post #20

tluyben2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer actual old hardware for that (60-70-80s), that way the results really give some strange satisfaction. Personal ofcourse.

Actual old hardware has a problem though: might me impossible to find. For example I live in Brazil, I learned to code trying to port MSX Basic games to a 286 GWBASIC, because I never saw a msx in person. Also, some other hardware I would love to fool around and never saw one: C64, Amiga, Sega Saturn, 3DO, PC Engine, non-Intel Mac, a real NES (I owned a clone once), programmable calculators.

MSX's are hard to find in Brazil? I thought it used to be very very popular there. I see many of them here [0] for prices I would definitely pay; here it is very hard to find them for those prices still. I would buy stuff like this [1] or [2] blindly. If you buy it I will pay you more + shipment to me :)

C64s are still ok to get in other countries; MSXs are getting scarce. I managed to collect over 100 of them luckily as it is my favorite computer (nostalgia sure, but I also find it important that young people can see how it used to be).

I have all the computers you name there, several of each; I can trade you for a working Gradient or Hotbit. Or just pay you :)

Personally I like the ZX Spectrum & MSX the best to code on, because I was raised on Z80 assembly. After that the Amiga, but I already find that a bit too advanced; MSX is so limited (a little over 3 megahertz & usually 64-128 kilobytes! of RAM) it really is a game to get things working at some speed. But people are still doing it; for me the highlight is [3] which I find far more impressive than the latest JS-soup framework :)

Then again, this [4] is impressive!

[0] http://lista.mercadolivre.com.br/msx [1] http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-791538729-console-msx... [2] http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-792461786-msx-expert-... [3] http://www.symbos.de/ [4] http://webmsx.org/

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#24

Post by pmoriarty » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 3:10 PM UTC

I've played both TIS-100, and their earlier game, Space Chem. Like Space Chem, which doesn't have a whole lot to do with real chemistry, TIS-100 doesn't have a whole lot to do with programming. They use chemistry and programming as window dressing for what are otherwise pretty uninspiring puzzle games.

To my knowledge, the game that gets closest to real assembly language programming is Core Wars.[1][2]

Also, it's not assembly language, but Screeps[3] uses real Javascript programming, or any language that compiles to Javascript.[4]

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corewar

[2] - http://www.corewars.org/

[3] - https://screeps.com/

[4] - https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/list-of-langu...

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#25

Post by angryredblock » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 3:17 PM UTC

Love it -- reminds me of a more focused Uplink.

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#26

Post by esoteric_wombat » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 3:22 PM UTC

For really good non-programming puzzle games, I'd recommend Snakebird[0] and Stephen's Sausage Roll[1]. Try out Snakebird first, it's cheaper and works great on mobile devices. Don't let the cute art fool you, it's a monstrous game. If you get through most of Snakebird and still don't hate yourself, look into SSR. It's much more hardcore, but has some mind blowing puzzles.

As far as programming puzzle games go, Zachtronic basically has the market cornered.

[0] http://snakebird.noumenongames.com/ [1] http://www.stephenssausageroll.com/

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#27

Post by JoeDaDude » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 3:26 PM UTC

Here is another programming game, this one with a nice GUI: http://tomorrowcorporation.com/humanresourcemachine

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#28

Post by wolfgke » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 3:35 PM UTC

esoteric_wombat wrote: post #26

For really good non-programming puzzle games, I'd recommend Snakebird[0] and Stephen's Sausage Roll[1]. Try out Snakebird first, it's cheaper and works great on mobile devices. Don't let the cute art fool you, it's a monstrous game. If you get through most of Snakebird and still don't hate yourself, look into SSR. It's much more hardcore, but has some mind blowing puzzles. As far as programming puzzle games go, Zacht…

> As far as programming puzzle games go, Zachtronic basically has the market cornered.

I wouldn't say that: There is at least

- Human Resource Machine

and if you look a little bit more around (programming games that are not programming puzzle games in the purest sense) there is

- Else Heart.Break()

- Glitchspace

- Hack 'n' Slash

There also seem to be (I don't know this game, but it seems plausible to me that they fit the list)

- Cyber Sentinel

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#29

Post by gallerdude » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 3:36 PM UTC

esoteric_wombat wrote: post #26

For really good non-programming puzzle games, I'd recommend Snakebird[0] and Stephen's Sausage Roll[1]. Try out Snakebird first, it's cheaper and works great on mobile devices. Don't let the cute art fool you, it's a monstrous game. If you get through most of Snakebird and still don't hate yourself, look into SSR. It's much more hardcore, but has some mind blowing puzzles. As far as programming puzzle games go, Zacht…

+1 for Sausage Roll

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#30

Post by jblow » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 3:55 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #24

I've played both TIS-100, and their earlier game, Space Chem. Like Space Chem, which doesn't have a whole lot to do with real chemistry, TIS-100 doesn't have a whole lot to do with programming. They use chemistry and programming as window dressing for what are otherwise pretty uninspiring puzzle games. To my knowledge, the game that gets closest to real assembly language programming is Core Wars.[1][2] Also, it's not…

I am not sure how you can say these games "don't have a whole lot to do with programming". They are programming.

Maybe you didn't ever have the experience of programming on an 8-bit CPU and don't get the joke? The machines in these games are comically limited, "this is like the cruftiness of an 8-bit CPU but even worse". The funny thing about TIS-100 is that it's a speculative fiction game, postulating an alternate reality -- what if we had gone down the path of multicore CPUs back when they were still super-primitive?