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TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

zachtronics.com

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Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#61

Post by swah »

KirinDave wrote: post #32
wolfgke wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It's true, but all of those games are... well... Zachtronics doesn't pull any punches. Their games are amazing. Even the deceptively simple Infinifactory is actually full of amazing and beautiful opportunities for elegant programming concepts (the first time you realize, "I can... I can make a clock with controllably variable periodicity!? What?" And TIS-100 resembles programming in a stripped down Erlang-like mode.…

Do you think those games can make you better at some kinds of programming?

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#62

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

esoteric_wombat wrote: post #37
KirinDave wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true, but all of those games are... well... Zachtronics doesn't pull any punches. Their games are amazing. Even the deceptively simple Infinifactory is actually full of amazing and beautiful opportunities for elegant programming concepts (the first time you realize, "I can... I can make a clock with controllably variable periodicity!? What?" And TIS-100 resembles programming in a stripped down Erlang-like mode.…

What I should have said is that Zachtronics has the market cornered on programming puzzle games for programmers . I could suggest Human Resource Machine to someone who has never programmed before, but I would never do that with TIS-100. Making a TIS emulator in Elixir sounds like a fun and useless project.

Somebody's already done one in C: https://eviltrout.com/2015/06/29/an-emulator-for-tis-100.htm...

And according to Zach, the intended market wasn't just programmers (which is why he explicitly killed bit manipulation, and the largest number a TIS-100 register can hold isn't a power of two), and I've heard tales of non-programmers enjoying it.

Then again, if you like Zachtronics games, especially TIS-100, then have I got a hobby for you...

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#63

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

swah wrote: post #61
KirinDave wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true, but all of those games are... well... Zachtronics doesn't pull any punches. Their games are amazing. Even the deceptively simple Infinifactory is actually full of amazing and beautiful opportunities for elegant programming concepts (the first time you realize, "I can... I can make a clock with controllably variable periodicity!? What?" And TIS-100 resembles programming in a stripped down Erlang-like mode.…

Do you think those games can make you better at some kinds of programming?

Of course. They're effectively excercises for the parts of your brain that you use most while programming.

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#64

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

wolfgke wrote: post #54
dmd wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grade or middle school, really. "Clever highschoolers" are writing their own bare-metal OSes these days.

> "Clever highschoolers" are writing their own bare-metal OSes these days. Perhaps you are even right since advanced Arduino programming (which many "Clever highschoolers" should be able to do) is in some sense like writing a really simple RTOS. :-)

And of course, let us not forget that a clever highschooler wrote Babel.

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#65

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

db48x wrote: post #60
strangecasts wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for an architecture that could never exist. Interestingly, there is a real world equivalent to the TIS architecture: the GA144[1] has lots of memory-constrained Forth cores with software defined I/O between them. [1] http://www.greenarraychips.com/

Or the Connection Machine, where the individual processors were arranged in a hypercube.

Similar architectures could exist, but the exact one the TIS used? Not in a million years, unless somebody was explictly doing it to recreate the game IRL.

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#66

Post by tetrep »

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…

I'd say Quadrilateral Cowboy is a notable exception.

http://blendogames.com/qc/

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#67

Post by SquareWheel »

qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #50
mjevans wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I played that mod. It made me really want Forth to have been part of the college education I had.

Eloraam (the mod author) is working on a full game based on the mod. She claims to have started work on it, so knowing her it will be done by 2029.

It's certainly been started. She posts screenshots on Twitter every couple weeks with progress updates.

https://twitter.com/therealeloraam

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#68

Post by tgb »

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…

Also try Jelly no Puzzle: http://qrostar.skr.jp/index.cgi?page=jelly&lang=en

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#69

Post by RandomOpinion »

jblow wrote: post #30
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 r…

I think pmoriarty's point is that, while they are programming games, the programming is abstracted and obfuscated into puzzles in a way that puts it a good distance from how practical programming is done these days. You have to admit that the type of accumulator-based CPU architecture used in these games is archaic and only found in the smallest microcontrollers today. And the multi-core structure and other constraints bears only a passing resemblance to how real systems work.

None of this detracts in the slightest from their being great games but they're no more related to actual programming than Starcraft is related to leading actual troops into battle.

Re: TIS-100 – Tessellated Intelligence System

#70

Post by jxy »

The most fun I had with a programming contest is the ICFP contest 2007 [0].

[0] http://save-endo.cs.uu.nl

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    Spoilers ALERT
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You will be writing an interpreter to write images, then you'll find sound, and you'll find yourself working with an interactive fiction, and...
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