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TIS-100P on the App Store

110 points by shawndumas 11y ago

artursapek 11y ago
Pretty niche market they're going after with this one! I'd buy it if I had an iPad.
- drivers99 11y ago
  Looks like it's also available on steam and gog, so you don't need an iPad. This looks like it could be my type of fun. SpaceChem was awesome because it made me feel like I was designing microcode in a way (in that you have to coordinate independent things to work together with some basic commands), and KOHCTPYKTOP was really fun for (simulated) designing of integrated circuits from transistors by hand. Here's a reddit AMA from 6 months ago. I guess the game is actually not new after all. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3brxcs/i_am_zach_barth_the_creative_director_of_the_game/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3brxcs/i_am_zach_bart...
  - jasonkostempski 11y ago
    I got it through Stream last summer, it's super fun. I think I only paid like $3 for it but I would definitely pay the $7 it's at now.
- roghummal 11y ago
  There's also a version for OS X/Windows/Linux. It's just called TIS-100 (no p).
jdcarter 11y ago
I've enjoyed playing the Steam version of this. Really good puzzles and even has a story line. Print out the manual for a proper old-school experience!
- pepijndevos 11y ago
  Is the assembly language an existing variation, or some imaginary machine?
  - abbeyj 11y ago
    It is an imaginary machine. There are only about a dozen different instructions which makes learning it easier. It also makes solving some of the puzzles more interesting when you run into limits on the number of instructions that you have space for.
  - asQuirreL 11y ago
    It is an imaginary machine, intended to have restrictions that most real hardware wouldn't have (like not being able to access the BAK register directly), but the aim of this is to make the game more of a challenge, and thus more fun.
  - bendykstra 11y ago
    They are very simple, imaginary machines. They only have one general purpose register, a single non-addressable register to which you can copy or swap the value in the main register and four I/O registers for communicating with adjacent machines. To get anything complex done, you need to use multiple machines and much of the puzzling is spent figuring out how to divide the responsibilities.
lazerwalker 11y ago
I love this game, and am so happy to see it on the iPad. That being said, it's a bit of a shame it uses a virtual keyboard. Given the relatively constrained set of possible inputs (a dozen instructions, plus UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT/ACC/NIL), it would have been cool to see him explore some more experimental touch-friendly input methods.
- sleepybrett 11y ago
  I recall that this may be a unity game, I'm not sure how hard it would be to implement a custom keyboard in unity.
  - lazerwalker 11y ago
    It already has a custom keyboard, styled (quite well!) to look and sound like one you'd find on an early microcomputer.
- pekk 11y ago
  It doesn't seem fair to not allow proper comments and label choices using the keyboard...
  - maho 11y ago
    In those cases, the keyboard could pop up. For most instructions, you don't need the keyboard.
paste0x78 11y ago
Would love to see this on android since its built in unity (or at least the original was).
candeira 11y ago
Someone make an API to link this and Starfighter.io.
- danielvf 11y ago
  Given the trivial instruction set, you could probably do it yourself!
minimax 11y ago
I really loved playing this game on Steam and I would happily pay for more levels. I wonder how useful TIS-100 would be for teaching programming. The limited instruction set and number of registers make for a very simple and easy to understand programming environment.
- gmurphy 11y ago
  My father used to teach microcontroller programming (after doing it for years at TI); he LOVES this game, wishes he had it when he was teaching students just a few years ago, and has recommended it to the professors who succeeded him.
shawndumas 11y ago
http://reddit.com/r/tis100/ http://reddit.com/r/tis100/
brian-armstrong 11y ago
TIS-100 is a fantastic game and it gives you lots of opportunities to use any dataflow or compiler optimizations you might know about. The instruction set is rather limited, not even giving us shift or bitwise ops, but it turns out to be more than sufficient. I've made a youtube that demonstrates some pipelining and loop unrolling in one of my solutions for Signal Averager. This video does contain some spoilers but will give you an idea of what's possible in TIS-100, just in case you're on the fence :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBfEcxvJ6aY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBfEcxvJ6aY
0x54MUR41 11y ago
If you want to play an emulator of TIS-100 in PC, I would recommend this one [1]. It is TIS-100, not TIS-100P. I don't know what difference between those. [1]: https://github.com/eviltrout/tis-100 https://github.com/eviltrout/tis-100

110 points by shawndumas 11y ago

artursapek 11y ago

Pretty niche market they're going after with this one! I'd buy it if I had an iPad.

drivers99 11y ago
Looks like it's also available on steam and gog, so you don't need an iPad. This looks like it could be my type of fun. SpaceChem was awesome because it made me feel like I was designing microcode in a way (in that you have to coordinate independent things to work together with some basic commands), and KOHCTPYKTOP was really fun for (simulated) designing of integrated circuits from transistors by hand. Here's a reddit AMA from 6 months ago. I guess the game is actually not new after all. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3brxcs/i_am_zach_barth_the_creative_director_of_the_game/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3brxcs/i_am_zach_bart...
- jasonkostempski 11y ago
  I got it through Stream last summer, it's super fun. I think I only paid like $3 for it but I would definitely pay the $7 it's at now.
roghummal 11y ago
There's also a version for OS X/Windows/Linux. It's just called TIS-100 (no p).

jdcarter 11y ago

I've enjoyed playing the Steam version of this. Really good puzzles and even has a story line. Print out the manual for a proper old-school experience!

pepijndevos 11y ago
Is the assembly language an existing variation, or some imaginary machine?
- abbeyj 11y ago
  It is an imaginary machine. There are only about a dozen different instructions which makes learning it easier. It also makes solving some of the puzzles more interesting when you run into limits on the number of instructions that you have space for.
- asQuirreL 11y ago
  It is an imaginary machine, intended to have restrictions that most real hardware wouldn't have (like not being able to access the BAK register directly), but the aim of this is to make the game more of a challenge, and thus more fun.
- bendykstra 11y ago
  They are very simple, imaginary machines. They only have one general purpose register, a single non-addressable register to which you can copy or swap the value in the main register and four I/O registers for communicating with adjacent machines. To get anything complex done, you need to use multiple machines and much of the puzzling is spent figuring out how to divide the responsibilities.

lazerwalker 11y ago

I love this game, and am so happy to see it on the iPad. That being said, it's a bit of a shame it uses a virtual keyboard. Given the relatively constrained set of possible inputs (a dozen instructions, plus UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT/ACC/NIL), it would have been cool to see him explore some more experimental touch-friendly input methods.

sleepybrett 11y ago
I recall that this may be a unity game, I'm not sure how hard it would be to implement a custom keyboard in unity.
- lazerwalker 11y ago
  It already has a custom keyboard, styled (quite well!) to look and sound like one you'd find on an early microcomputer.
pekk 11y ago
It doesn't seem fair to not allow proper comments and label choices using the keyboard...
- maho 11y ago
  In those cases, the keyboard could pop up. For most instructions, you don't need the keyboard.

paste0x78 11y ago

Would love to see this on android since its built in unity (or at least the original was).

candeira 11y ago

Someone make an API to link this and Starfighter.io.

danielvf 11y ago
Given the trivial instruction set, you could probably do it yourself!

minimax 11y ago

I really loved playing this game on Steam and I would happily pay for more levels. I wonder how useful TIS-100 would be for teaching programming. The limited instruction set and number of registers make for a very simple and easy to understand programming environment.

gmurphy 11y ago
My father used to teach microcontroller programming (after doing it for years at TI); he LOVES this game, wishes he had it when he was teaching students just a few years ago, and has recommended it to the professors who succeeded him.

shawndumas 11y ago

http://reddit.com/r/tis100/ http://reddit.com/r/tis100/

brian-armstrong 11y ago

TIS-100 is a fantastic game and it gives you lots of opportunities to use any dataflow or compiler optimizations you might know about. The instruction set is rather limited, not even giving us shift or bitwise ops, but it turns out to be more than sufficient. I've made a youtube that demonstrates some pipelining and loop unrolling in one of my solutions for Signal Averager. This video does contain some spoilers but will give you an idea of what's possible in TIS-100, just in case you're on the fence :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBfEcxvJ6aY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBfEcxvJ6aY

0x54MUR41 11y ago

If you want to play an emulator of TIS-100 in PC, I would recommend this one [1]. It is TIS-100, not TIS-100P. I don't know what difference between those. [1]: https://github.com/eviltrout/tis-100 https://github.com/eviltrout/tis-100