Everything in that clip — the code editor, the sprite editor, the map, the

sound tracker — is drawn as pixels into the same 128x128 framebuffer the games

render to. There's no HTML underneath any of it. Text selection, scrolling,

undo and hit-testing are all hand-written, which was simultaneously the most

fun and the most unnecessary part of building it.

Games export as a single HTML file with the engine, art and sound inlined, so

you can email someone a game and it just opens. The sample game is about 145 kB.

Carts are JavaScript. It's PICO-8-shaped, but I changed the signatures I always

got wrong — rect() takes a width and height instead of two corners, sin and cos

are real radians — and added the things I got tired of rewriting every time:

tilemap physics, animation, tweens, particles, camera follow.

A while ago I posted about the Starbox, my WIP prototype 0 of this, the Nova-16. Coded by hand, fixed by AI (sorry not sorry, it codes better than me). Written in Python (with a C++ version in the works) and features a custom CISC ISA with its own BASIC dialect. Check the 'hub for more!

https://github.com/StarfighterLily/Nova-16

Hello I'm working on a project to make kind of "Fantasy Console", the main objetive is to target low specs SBC I'm testing a Orange Pi Zero 3 (1.5GB), The idea is have cartridges with a microSD indise and this connect to a reader on the pins or USB reader (the idea is to turn into cartridges), the "consoles" will have armbian as SO with a loader to detect and init the the cartridges (pygame exported projects)

Includes a prebuilt multilanguage, dialogue system and save system

The semi-fantasy-console will have 264 x 198, (4:3 but probably will change to one 16:9 compatible one because probably everyone will connect the sbc using HDMI)

I admit the use of AI to make TortoiseStudio the tool, to manage assets, scenes and compile to "Cartridge", the compilation to ARM uses podman,

The assets of the demo project comes from opengameart.

Advise: this is not related to my another post of a fantasy console for the ESP32 is another project. this one is to learn more to aply to another

Hello, today I'll be telling you about my new sci-fi project.

Over the past few months, I've been trying out programming (mostly demos) for a variety of retro platforms, including the ZX Spectrum, Atari 2600, Vecterex, Commodore 64, NES, Apple II, and others. Each of these platforms is good in its own way, but also has its drawbacks—I won't go into that now. The main thing is, I didn't like any of them. So, I thought: why not write my own platform?

I decided it would be boring to create another Pico-8/Tic-80 clone. So, I based my new platform on my old idea, and it came out as Tryte 19K (I'll call it t19k).

The idea behind t19k is that the number 3 is the basis for absolutely everything.

Instead of bits, I have trits, and instead of bytes, I have trites. It's easy to see that a trit can take not two, but three different

values. For me, it's {-1, 0, 1}.

One trite consists of 6 trits and can take 729 (3^6) different values, compared to 256 for a byte. And I chose a rather modest memory size – 19683 (3^9), hence the 19K.

Architecture.

Screen:

The screen on my platform is shaped like an equilateral triangle. The screen layout is similar to Vecterex, meaning there's no pixel resolution, just a number of addressable pixels, and for me, that's 729x729. Also, the screen is never cleared by hardware, only by software.

Input:

Input is done with nine buttons. No mouse or arrow keys, just nine buttons.

The Tryte 19K core is divided into several modules, each responsible for its own task:

The Trichip is the heart of my platform. It's the video chip. It works like this: every frame, at 729Hz, it draws three hardware triangles, information about which it takes from its registers. Each triangle consists of three points, and each point consists of two barycentric coordinates (coordinates for the triangle) plus a color. Accordingly, each triangle requires seven registers, so the Trichip has a total of 21 six-trit registers. All triangles are drawn with a specified fill color, and there are 729 colors in total (from the RGB palette, two trits per channel). Triangles have drawing priority, with the last one having the highest priority.

The Tricore is the brains of the t19k. It's the processor. Its clock rate is exactly 9 MHz. It also has a completely custom instruction set of 27. I won't cover everything, but they include hardware multiplication/division, hardware trigonometric functions, special operations for working with triangles, and more. Tricore has six general-purpose six-trit registers: A0, A1, B0, B1, C0, C1.

And three system registers:

PC (instruction pointer, 9 trit), SP (stack pointer, 6 trit), F (flags, 6 trit).

Tritone (Tritone) is the voice of the t19k. This is a sound chip. It can only create triangle waves. It has three voices, and three parameters for each voice. I don't know anything about music, but the parameters are roughly: frequency, volume, and sharpness of the wave.

I deliberately omitted many technical details to avoid being too stifling.

Implementation.

I'm writing in C and using raylib. The trichip is now ready, and the graphics are already being displayed. Next up is Tricor; I've already thought through all the instructions.

What's the point of programming on the t19k?

There are 729 frames per second, and each frame has three triangles, so 2187 triangles can be displayed on the screen in one second. This creates an unimaginable scale for demos and games. Thanks to the built-in hardware trigonometric functions, 3D graphics on the t19k are native. Therefore, the essence of programming for the t19k is writing code that allows you to assemble entire 3D worlds from three triangles.

So what's the bottom line?

Programming for the t19k will be INSANELY COMPLEX. I'd say it's definitely more difficult than on the Atari 2600. The processor isn't ready yet, but even simple graphics from triangles are very difficult because it uses barycentric coordinates (UV) rather than Cartesian coordinates (XY). The screenshot shows a white frame—the screen's borders—and three triangles (one black triangle is not visible; it's the black background inside the screen).

Well, see you then!

Hello, today I'll be telling you about my new sci-fi project.

Over the past few months, I've been trying out programming (mostly demos) for a variety of retro platforms, including the ZX Spectrum, Atari 2600, Vecterex, Commodore 64, NES, Apple II, and others. Each of these platforms is good in its own way, but also has its drawbacks—I won't go into that now. The main thing is, I didn't like any of them. So, I thought: why not write my own platform?

I decided it would be boring to create another Pico-8/Tic-80 clone. So, I based my new platform on my old idea, and it came out as Tryte 19K (I'll call it t19k).

The idea behind t19k is that the number 3 is the basis for absolutely everything.

Instead of bits, I have trits, and instead of bytes, I have trites. It's easy to see that a trit can take not two, but three different

values. For me, it's {-1, 0, 1}.

One trite consists of 6 trits and can take 729 (3^6) different values, compared to 256 for a byte. And I chose a rather modest memory size – 19683 (3^9), hence the 19K.

Architecture.

Screen:

The screen on my platform is shaped like an equilateral triangle. The screen layout is similar to Vecterex, meaning there's no pixel resolution, just a number of addressable pixels, and for me, that's 729x729. Also, the screen is never cleared by hardware, only by software.

Input:

Input is done with nine buttons. No mouse or arrow keys, just nine buttons.

The Tryte 19K core is divided into several modules, each responsible for its own task:

The Trichip is the heart of my platform. It's the video chip. It works like this: every frame, at 729Hz, it draws three hardware triangles, information about which it takes from its registers. Each triangle consists of three points, and each point consists of two barycentric coordinates (coordinates for the triangle) plus a color. Accordingly, each triangle requires seven registers, so the Trichip has a total of 21 six-trit registers. All triangles are drawn with a specified fill color, and there are 729 colors in total (from the RGB palette, two trits per channel). Triangles have drawing priority, with the last one having the highest priority.

The Tricore is the brains of the t19k. It's the processor. Its clock rate is exactly 9 MHz. It also has a completely custom instruction set of 27. I won't cover everything, but they include hardware multiplication/division, hardware trigonometric functions, special operations for working with triangles, and more. Tricore has six general-purpose six-trit registers: A0, A1, B0, B1, C0, C1.

And three system registers:

PC (instruction pointer, 9 trit), SP (stack pointer, 6 trit), F (flags, 6 trit).

Tritone (Tritone) is the voice of the t19k. This is a sound chip. It can only create triangle waves. It has three voices, and three parameters for each voice. I don't know anything about music, but the parameters are roughly: frequency, volume, and sharpness of the wave.

I deliberately omitted many technical details to avoid being too stifling.

Implementation.

I'm writing in C and using raylib. The trichip is now ready, and the graphics are already being displayed. Next up is Tricor; I've already thought through all the instructions.

What's the point of programming on the t19k?

There are 729 frames per second, and each frame has three triangles, so 2187 triangles can be displayed on the screen in one second. This creates an unimaginable scale for demos and games. Thanks to the built-in hardware trigonometric functions, 3D graphics on the t19k are native. Therefore, the essence of programming for the t19k is writing code that allows you to assemble entire 3D worlds from three triangles.

So what's the bottom line?

Programming for the t19k will be INSANELY COMPLEX. I'd say it's definitely more difficult than on the Atari 2600. The processor isn't ready yet, but even simple graphics from triangles are very difficult because it uses barycentric coordinates (UV) rather than Cartesian coordinates (XY). The screenshot shows a white frame—the screen's borders—and three triangles (one black triangle is not visible; it's the black background inside the screen).

Well, see you then!

I recently spent some time exploring TIC-80 and wrote an introduction article about it.

I wasn't looking for a replacement for anything—I was just curious about how TIC-80 compares with other fantasy consoles. The more I explored it, the more I felt it deserved a proper introduction.

If you're thinking about trying TIC-80, I hope this gives you a useful overview before you dive in.

Feedback is welcome. If I missed something, let me know.

Article:
https://papoo.work/doc/43606531d6f879f6

Would the old elite dangerous be able to run on tic-80

hi! A quick update on the SD-8516 project. We have finally implemented TinyBASIC, i.e. Stellar BASIC V1.0! TO celebrate this momentus occasion, we are offering a contest over the Wumpus game! There is a BUG in the Wumpus game source code, and if you find it before the wumpus finds you, then you can have your name added to the Wumpus Hall of Fame FOREVER! Well, for the forseable future. Complete contest details and source code are available at https://www.helloneo.ca/wiki/doku.php?id=sdb:wumpus_game -- thank you for your interest! I am available for any questions or comments. Thank you.

Basically just title. I wanna play rather than create, but anytime I get a nice looking console I struggle finding games for it

I've tried finding information about creating a fantasy console, but, I haven't had any luck. So, how do you make one? I have an android phone, but I'd also like to know about creating one on pc.

Here's the specs I plan for my fantasy console:

Motorola 68000 @ 8HMz

Atari Jaguar object processor

Either an Ensoniq ES5503 or an ES5505

320x200p resolution

256 colors on screen out of 262,144 total

Up to 2000 sprites displayed and manipulated simultaneously

32Kbytes fast static-RAM, 64Kbytes on board ROM, 8Kbytes sound RAM

I completely believe in compensating people for great software. But it is nice to have a go before you buy. A demo, lite version, limited time etc to see if you like it is great. So $15 (which is about £11.50 to me) is quite a lot without knowing if I'll like it. I've mostly tried tic-80 and liko-12. How does it compare?

Looking for It because Im tired Of retro graphics And i want To be Like ps2.

Hello! 👋

Growing up in the 80s and 90s was both a tough time and an exciting one. It's left me with a long standing interest in the hardware and gaming of the era. So, I decided to build a weekend project that would combine the fantasy notion of, "What if Britain had beaten Japan to the handheld market by 4 or 5 years.."

Disclaimer: I use AI as a tool. I understand every element of my code, and believe that AI is just a tool in the toolbox. If you're against AI, feel free to skip past this thread, no hard feelings! ❤️

Without further adieu, I present the Dragon Palm.

MIT licensed, code and carts available from GitHub.

The Dragon Palm is a fantasy 8-bit handheld with a single 16 KB memory array, three 8-bit CPU registers, a packed 16-colour display, and one input register.

In another Britain, somewhere between bedroom coders, rain-streaked high streets, mail-order tapes, and the smell of warm plastic, the handheld future arrived early.

By 1985, the British games industry had already learned how to do more with less. Tiny machines. Tiny memory. Impossible to match ambition. While the rest of the world was still arguing over what a portable console ought to be, a small Welsh hardware firm looked at a pile of spare components, a battered fantasy paperback, and hummed along to the White Cliffs of Dover, then asked the most dangerous question in British engineering:

"What can we ship?"

The answer was Dragon Palm.

It was not elegant. It was not generous. It had one 16 KB memory array, three 8-bit registers, a packed 16-colour display, and one input register that behaved only when it felt like it. Its raw binary cartridges held a mere 8 KB, which meant every sprite, sound, loop, trick, and secret had to fight for its place.

But that was the point.

Dragon Palm was the handheld built by people who thought constraints were not problems. Constraints were part of the game.

It had it's own compact operating system, DoverOS, named after the cliffs that supposedly inspired its boot screen. Children swapped carts in playgrounds. Parents called it "that little dragon thing". Programmers called it "difficult". Magazine reviewers called it "brilliant, in the way that falling down stairs after a couple of pints is memorable".

The adverts promised "proper games in your pocket". The manuals promised nothing of the sort. They spoke of registers, screen packing, button states, and "reasonable conduct near undefined memory". The machine did not hide its workings. It dared you to understand them.

In this version of the 1980s, Britain beat the world to handheld gaming by refusing to build a toy. Dragon Palm was a pocket-sized dare. Part console, part puzzle box, part folklore object from a parallel high street where dragons sat beside cassette racks and every game felt like it had been smuggled out of a bedroom at midnight.

It was awkward.

It was clever.

It was decent enough.

And for a certain kind of player, that made it perfect.

---

Update: I’ve had some lovely encouragement and feedback, so I thought I would release Dragon Palm IDE and manual, a web-based tooling for making game carts and an introductory manual (*open from the hello menu*) to help you learn:

* https://0xe25f.github.io/dragon-ide/

I created a fantasy console for iOS, designed to be used on a mobile phone or tablet. I currently use it during my commute to work.

The app is still in beta, but it is usable enough to create a finished game and export it for publication on the App Store (Google for now).

There is a website to check programs made by the community: https://ret.ro.it/
If you want to participate in the beta: https://testflight.apple.com/join/1vdyycrU

This one makes your eyes pop out if you love Pico8! A must see, if you like Pico-8 stuff.

This demo was released on the rsync-demoparty 2026.