
TIC-80, a fantasy computer to learn programming - zeveb
https://tic.computer/
======
hungariantoast
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](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.

~~~
opencl
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

~~~
binarycrusader
PICO-8 may be commercial software for creators, but players can play PICO-8
games published via the web app for free.

The author, "zep" (of lexaloffle games), is also a wonderful human being that
goes out of their way to support people who buy it / play PICO-8 games and
deserves every penny for it.

While I hope they some day consider open sourcing PICO-8 so it may live on,
for now, it provides them with meaningful income and lets them actively
develop it, which I wholeheartedly support.

~~~
pull_my_finger
The author is actually Zep. Lexaloffle is the company.

------
vertexFarm
This really reminds me of a lot of Niklas Jansson's concepts over at
[https://androidarts.com/](https://androidarts.com/)

I love the way he thinks and distills a design to give it so much character.
He does lots of retro hardware re-designs too, which are singularly cool. I
bet he'd have a blast playing with TIC-80.

------
timvisee
This makes me think of TIS-100, an amazing and challenging game to learn
assembly basics.

[http://www.zachtronics.com/tis-100/](http://www.zachtronics.com/tis-100/)

~~~
sattoshi
Literally anything by zachronics deserves a recommendation.

------
seanmcdirmid
The programming system looks really interesting, but that font is super
annoying.

~~~
tedyoung
The font is awesome for the first minute or two, but yeah, hard to work with
after that.

~~~
userbinator
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/](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](https://www.pjrc.com/mp3/lcdfont2a.jpg)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I don’t remember them being that annoying in the 80s, or maybe we just read
less text back then.

~~~
jacquesm
Having a bitmapped screen was already a huge improvement over character based
graphics so I guess that everybody that could get it did so and took the lower
resolution letters in stride.

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.

------
shakna
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](https://github.com/lolbot-
iichan/TIC-80/wiki)

~~~
digi_owl
More like masochistic...

------
Tepix
If you are interested in real retro-ish DIY hardware, check out Hackeboy

[https://program.sha2017.org/events/153.html](https://program.sha2017.org/events/153.html)

[http://hackefuffel.com/hackeboy0001.html](http://hackefuffel.com/hackeboy0001.html)

~~~
makapuf
Please allow me to plug in my own project also, the bitbox console. It's a non
portable, very simple to build (one chip, solderable by hand) arm32 console.
It had a dozen games or so, all open-source.
[http://bitboxconsole.blogspot.com](http://bitboxconsole.blogspot.com) Edit:
typo and link.

------
mimerme
I've played around with the TIC-80 and I gotta say that the development
environment is something that is enjoyable for small projects but larger
projects are a headache.

~~~
vertexFarm
If you're doing a larger project on it then I think you need to re-calibrate
your expectations. It's more for educational play.

~~~
tluyben2
I like the 'batteries included' aspect of it; I wish more 'for practical use'
development systems had that. The fact that you can package the result for
different platforms, makes it interesting for trying out game mechanics on the
go and distributing them inside small games. The style it was made in works on
low res, small screens, so programming on small devices (small (cheap) Android
tablets, GPD Pocket(high res but small screen), Pandora, Pyra etc) is ok.

~~~
roywiggins
The last "practical" environment that was really batteries included, as far as
I can tell, was Macromedia Flash. It lives on as Haxe, the FlashDevelop IDE
feels like a blast from the past (it feels so lightweight!) and it supports
quite a few platforms (web, mobile, etc). But it's awfully niche now.

~~~
ungzd
It was not designed for games at all. Making games in in was too hacky.

------
triptych
Here's a list of fantasy consoles.
[https://github.com/paladin-t/fantasy/blob/master/README.md](https://github.com/paladin-t/fantasy/blob/master/README.md)

------
archgoon
For those who get into the "Hello World!" screen, or other screens, and can't
figure out how you're supposed to escape (short of hitting refresh), hit the
'ESCAPE' key. :)

------
fit2rule
There's also antirez' LOAD81:

[http://github.com/antirez/load81](http://github.com/antirez/load81)

And .. as its open source (unlike TIC-80 or PICO-8), its quite possible to add
features and extend the console in interesting ways ..

~~~
ungzd
TIC-80 is open source (however there is also "pro version" which isn't).
"Regular", open source version supports editing only in built-in editor, no
external text files.

Update: seems that "pro" version is built from the same MIT licensed source,
only prebuilt binaries on releases page is "non-pro". So it's completely open
source.

------
kelvin0
Anyone else having issues with playing in FireFox? Seems like a really cool
project, looks like I might have to install it instead of using it in browser
... a bit disappointed :(

~~~
ateesdalejr
What version FF are you using? It could be that you are on a beta build and
something is slowing it down, or you are running an older version.

~~~
kelvin0
59.0.3 On Win10 (x64)

~~~
ateesdalejr
OK, I'm running the same version on x64 Win10 as well. No problems here. It
could be you have some sort of ad-blocking extension installed that's
degrading performance on that page.

------
Yuioup
Does it run on a Pocket C.H.I.P?

~~~
4684499
It would be pretty cool, but I just find something sad:
[https://hackaday.com/2018/04/03/is-this-the-end-for-the-
c-h-...](https://hackaday.com/2018/04/03/is-this-the-end-for-the-c-h-i-p/)

------
nukeop
Another interesting fantasy console is LIKO-12, with a huge advantage of being
free software:

[https://github.com/RamiLego4Game/LIKO-12](https://github.com/RamiLego4Game/LIKO-12)

~~~
fenwick67
TIC-80 has the exact same license (MIT):

[https://github.com/nesbox/TIC-80/blob/master/LICENSE](https://github.com/nesbox/TIC-80/blob/master/LICENSE)

~~~
nukeop
Only the free version, there is another (Pro) version which has additional
features and a closed source.

~~~
fenwick67
This isn't correct either

"For users who can't spend the money, we made it easy to build the pro version
from the source code."

[https://github.com/nesbox/TIC-80#pro-
version](https://github.com/nesbox/TIC-80#pro-version)

[https://github.com/nesbox/TIC-80/blob/master/Makefile](https://github.com/nesbox/TIC-80/blob/master/Makefile)

