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I don't really see the point of these TIS-100 style games that use made-up instruction sets. Wouldn't it be more interesting if the game used a real instruction

I don't really see the point of these TIS-100 style games that use made-up instruction sets. Wouldn't it be more interesting if the game used a real instruction set (e.g. AVR, x86)? Then we could be learning something useful while playing, and make use of the results.

MichaelBurge 10y ago
The instruction set is finely tuned to make interesting puzzles. Most of my time in each puzzle was spent trying to cram 1 more instruction into a chip here or there. Since real instruction sets have to be practical for production use, I imagine it would be harder to get the same effect. Plus you wouldn't get cool features like being able to conditionally execute every instruction.
- RossBencina 10y ago
  > Since real instruction sets have to be practical for production use, I imagine it would be harder to get the same effect. I'm not so sure. Have you ever hand-optimised asm? I recall spending hours if not days trying to reduce the instruction count by 1 or 2 instructions in a tight DSP loop (Motorola 56k). It always seems like an interesting puzzle to me.
- salicideblock 10y ago
  > Plus you wouldn't get cool features like being able to conditionally execute every instruction. You would be very close if it were ARM :) My wild guess is that the developer wisely chose to sidestep imbalance towards parts of his public and any possible IP issues on the IS. Plus if he writes this kind of games he probably had fun writing his own IS.
- tech2 10y ago
  ARM had that early on, all instructions were conditional, but with many more condition codes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#Conditional_execution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#Conditional_e...
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Real ISAs are too complex. SIO assumes one cycle for all instructions, and discards binary, among other affordances. This makes the game more accessible. Also, the instruction set is optimized so that you can't do too much in a single instruction, so as to keep the space constraints meaningful. Now, if you were talking about the DCPU-16, I'd agree.
zorked 10y ago
You may be interested in the fantastic Microcorruption CTF, which uses the real-world MSP 430 microcontroller. (Also anyone interested in TIS-100 and Shenzhen I/O should at least take a look) [1] https://microcorruption.com/ https://microcorruption.com/

MichaelBurge 10y ago

The instruction set is finely tuned to make interesting puzzles. Most of my time in each puzzle was spent trying to cram 1 more instruction into a chip here or there. Since real instruction sets have to be practical for production use, I imagine it would be harder to get the same effect. Plus you wouldn't get cool features like being able to conditionally execute every instruction.

RossBencina 10y ago
> Since real instruction sets have to be practical for production use, I imagine it would be harder to get the same effect. I'm not so sure. Have you ever hand-optimised asm? I recall spending hours if not days trying to reduce the instruction count by 1 or 2 instructions in a tight DSP loop (Motorola 56k). It always seems like an interesting puzzle to me.
salicideblock 10y ago
> Plus you wouldn't get cool features like being able to conditionally execute every instruction. You would be very close if it were ARM :) My wild guess is that the developer wisely chose to sidestep imbalance towards parts of his public and any possible IP issues on the IS. Plus if he writes this kind of games he probably had fun writing his own IS.
tech2 10y ago
ARM had that early on, all instructions were conditional, but with many more condition codes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#Conditional_execution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#Conditional_e...

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

Real ISAs are too complex. SIO assumes one cycle for all instructions, and discards binary, among other affordances. This makes the game more accessible. Also, the instruction set is optimized so that you can't do too much in a single instruction, so as to keep the space constraints meaningful. Now, if you were talking about the DCPU-16, I'd agree.

zorked 10y ago

You may be interested in the fantastic Microcorruption CTF, which uses the real-world MSP 430 microcontroller. (Also anyone interested in TIS-100 and Shenzhen I/O should at least take a look) [1] https://microcorruption.com/ https://microcorruption.com/