The sheer simplicity of this idea - a 1-bit grid, which you can interact with in real-time - echoes that of Pico-8 [1], a fantasy console with strict limits such that you're not overwhelmed with ideas, but instead given bounds to play with. Its limits keep it realistic: you can do immensely wondrous things with the console, but its graphic and music style are limited, and as such it provides much more of an incentive to make a game - it's far less overwhelming, and you can concentrate on fun. But also, it offers a challenge! As you begin to hit the limits, you come up with clever tricks to save space, and because the computer isn't blisteringly fast, you're pushing yourself as much as you are the computer.
But this checkbox playground would be, in my eyes, an even better virtual console - reduced to the bare minimum of what you could make into a game that can be enjoyed. Provide a nice interface such that the user only has to write the game code, provide events to hook into - start(), frame() and click(x, y) - and this would be an immensely satisfying console to immediately get to work on, as rather than worry about graphics and audio, you're free to get right into making it fun.
...also, it'd be an excellent framework for teaching kids how to code! :D
You’re almost describing TI Basic, which is how I got in to programming in middle school. Of course, TI Basic had the additional advantage that I could mess with it during school, before laptops were common in classrooms
The original post also reminded me very much of QBasic. A major charm was how easy it was to just get some graphics on the screen. Some tiny resolutions, functions for a circle, a pixel, a line and a rectangle and you can do stuff from there. I very much remember making simple animations like the author has shown in QBasic.
And that's also why I think environments like QBasic, TI Basic or - more modern - godot, Game Maker Studio and such are very valuable. They allow kids to start programming with something simple and fun.
I'm struggling to find any of them now, bit I think there's many sites that provide a toy and interface similar to what you describe.
One in particular, I recall, provided a grid of colourable dots and a minimal language to program them in. There were social features to browse demos people had written. Anyone remember what it's called?
(16 × 16 grid of dots governed by a "shader-like" (?) function getting time, order, column and row indices arguments; negative values red, positive white, zero proximity shrinks.)
Not sure about those "social features", though you can just share the URL with your creating
There's ShaderToy, that works with actual pixels and shader code, but allows some fun effects to be made with very little code: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/4ljGD1 (and some really crazy raymarching stuff to be done by those with serious math/shader skills)
[1]: https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php
But this checkbox playground would be, in my eyes, an even better virtual console - reduced to the bare minimum of what you could make into a game that can be enjoyed. Provide a nice interface such that the user only has to write the game code, provide events to hook into - start(), frame() and click(x, y) - and this would be an immensely satisfying console to immediately get to work on, as rather than worry about graphics and audio, you're free to get right into making it fun.
...also, it'd be an excellent framework for teaching kids how to code! :D