7 ms·

I did Advent of Code on a Playstation

244 points by azhenley 4y ago

tmtvl 4y ago
The title is a bit misleading, the author did 15 days of AoC in a game creation platform for the PS4. I at first thought the title meant the author had done AoC on a PlayStation (as in PSX). Still interesting to see the demonstrations run.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bebop 4y ago
  A PS1 or PSX would be helpful in the title. I too expected a retro game implementation. PS4 and Dreams is indeed, also very cool though.
  - bmitc 4y ago
    > A PS1 or PSX would be helpful in the title. Why? Dreams is a PlayStation 4 and 5 game.
    - sli 4y ago
      The title is easily read as being about writing code to run in a PSX emulator or on modded hardware, rather than being about using Dreams for it's mostly-intended purpose. We use the terms PSX/PS2/etc. for a reason, and that alone would clarify the title quite a lot. Mentioning Dreams in the title would help, too.
      - bmitc 4y ago
        Yes, I know. But the post has nothing to do with a PS1 or PSX, so why would they be helpful in the title?
        masklinn 4y ago
        I think they just misworded that being more specific about the exact platform would be helpful: - the title mentions PlayStation, but all the oldies will assume that's a PS1, or possibly whichever PS gen they grew up with - the actual PS gen isn't even relevant really, this is more about doing it in Dreams than on a given device
- le-mark 4y ago
  Indeed, are there any PSX homebrew folks around who have done this or something similar?
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    Yes. Sony actually sold a consumer PS1 dev kit called the Net Yaroze. Some games made using that ended up on Playstation demo discs.
    - Pulcinella 4y ago
      Though I believe Sony made the graphics chip largely unavailable for use on the Net Yaroze (at least directly) as a opposed to a true dev kit where developers had access to the full hardware.
  - spicyjpeg 4y ago
    I have been almost single-handedly maintaining and expanding one of the largest open source PlayStation 1 SDKs [1] over the last year, adding all sorts of things from video playback to a dynamic linker. There are still plenty of bugs to fix and things to improve, but I think it can already be considered production ready for the most part. Unfortunately, however, the tooling around PS1 development still has a long way to go; while there are e.g. several open source image or audio conversion tools, none of them are on par with old Sony tools in terms of features. In fact most people still use the official SDK complete with its 1998-era compiler, despite its bloat and heavy use of undocumented proprietary file formats. [1]: https://github.com/Lameguy64/PSn00bSDK https://github.com/Lameguy64/PSn00bSDK
- psychphysic 4y ago
  Agree, this is a playstation in the sense that my mum called the NES thru the Wii a Nintendo.
  - thundermuffin 4y ago
    No, let's be fair to the author. It's a PlayStation in the sense it's named a Sony Playstation 4. Colloquially in the US (where the author is from), every generation is referred to as a PlayStation and has been since the PS2 days. Nintendo's naming scheme greatly differs from the way Sony does it, and I don't think it's it's good faith to the author to act like they're being dense or stupid.
    - masklinn 4y ago
      > No, let's be fair to the author. It's a PlayStation in the sense it's named a Sony Playstation 4. So in the sense that it says nothing interesting about the article. The PS3 originally supported alternative OS ("OtherOS" feature), in which sense doing advent of code on a playstation is no different than doing it on any computer from circa 2005.
      - psychphysic 4y ago
        Agree while I like the article the title is misleading. Similarly PS2 Linux was official[0]. There was also an implementation of basic. For the PSX there was the Net Yaroze[1]. Allowing game development and sharing. The several of the Nintendo consoles have smileBASIC (petitComputer)[2]. Heck you can boot Linux and Steam on the PS4 these days...[3]. Finally, there are SDKs available for every Sony and Nintendo console of the modern era. DevkitPro is generally excellent[5]. This article should be called I did advent of code in Dreams. But got to get dem clicks. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2 [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Yaroze https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Yaroze [2] https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/SmileBASIC-4-1763115.html https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-so... [4] https://gbatemp.net/threads/ps4-linux-bzimages-for-all-versions-of-ps4.615085/ https://gbatemp.net/threads/ps4-linux-bzimages-for-all-versi... [5] https://devkitpro.org/ https://devkitpro.org/
- hcs 4y ago
  My first thought was the Linux kits for PS2 and PS3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS I wasn't disappointed, though, this is a pretty cool project!
  - frou_dh 4y ago
    I did some non-game programming on a PS2 Linux Kit and it wasn't particularly interesting. Just sitting at a normal Linux CLI with ancient versions of tools.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
MisterSandman 4y ago
Dreams is amazing, this is really awesome work!
ta988 4y ago
The title doesn't reflect how impressive that is.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
musha68k 4y ago
What a whimsical article, I had totally forgotten about Dreams! Also finally a good excuse to buy a PS5: Build a 100% fun time LISP interpreter in VR! No Meta creep stack required! Let's hope the new US run Sony / PlayStation doesn't axe Media Molecule for excessive efficiency reasons like they did with Studio Japan. It's crazy outlier teams / projects that made PlayStation special / what it is today.
- nicolas_t 4y ago
  I hadn't heard about that, what a shortsighted decision, most of the exclusives that ever made me buy Sony's consoles were either made by Media molecule or Japan studio...
  - rubyist5eva 4y ago
    Japan Studio made my favorite game of all time (in collaboration with From Software): Bloodborne. I had no idea they shuttered Japan Studio, that makes me sad...and even more depressed that Bloodborne will likely not get a PC Port or PS5 patch it rightly deserves.
    - shinymark 4y ago
      Considering how similar Bloodborne is to other From Software games I assumed it was developed 100% at From with Sony as the publisher. But I have no idea what the reality is. Did Japan Studio do development work on the game too? If so, I’d be curious to know how they split up the development work between teams.
      - rubyist5eva 4y ago
        Japan Studio is credited in the game and actually pitched the original concept to Hidetaka Miyazaki because they specifically wanted to work with From Software. I’m not sure how “collaborative” the actual development was though. I guess the way I worded my original reply made it seem that Japan Studio was the primary developer but I’m pretty sure it was primarily From Software. https://youtu.be/oiGPTI06fn8 https://youtu.be/oiGPTI06fn8
chungus 4y ago
This is just great, makes me want to tinker with Dreams.
- danielvaughn 4y ago
  It's amazing. I love it so much, the only drawback is that it's tied to the Playstation. If it weren't, it would be a much bigger presence because the creation tools were unlike anything I've ever seen before.
  - bvisness 4y ago
    It would be great if they could at least bring the runtime to PC so that people could distribute their games more widely - although at that point you might as well have the whole editor too.
    - danielvaughn 4y ago
      I’ve been thinking about this a lot as well. I think it’s doubtful that they’ll port it since MM is owned by Sony. But I agree it would be excellent. What I’m imagining is something like Dreams that is supported by a whole editor. There’s just something about their approach that feels so much more accessible than any game dev tool I’ve come across. It’s really amazing. Once WebGPU becomes a reality, it might even be possible to port Dreams content to the web.
ec109685 4y ago
This brings me back to EE in college as a CS student just trying to make logic work and hitting race conditions left and right (and adding workaround after workarounds), versus the environment I was used to where a program is executed sequentially.
- bvisness 4y ago
  I would love to see someone with electronics experience use Dreams for a while. My total electronics experience is Snap Circuits and Ben Eater videos, so I can't make as rich a connection to electronics as you might hope from an article like this. Maybe there are techniques from real-world circuit design that would actually transfer to Dreams, who knows?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mosselman 4y ago
On an unrelated note. I see you are using a condensor microphone af quite a distance. You have to bump the gain a lot in order to be understood, but with condensor mics that means you will pick up a lot of noise. You can clearly hear the reflections of your voice in the room which has a negative impact on your sound quality. You can either treat the room with sound panelling, put the mic a lot closer so you can lower the gain, but ideally you’d get a dynamic microphone. Dynamic microphones are less likely to pick up reflections and other noise, but you still have to have it up close. It is also less work than treating a room such as you were in in the video I saw. Lately I’ve been deep diving into microphones and after hours of investigations this is what I’ve learned. Suggestions: the Fduce sl40 if you want a budget option or the deity vo-7u for a bit higher end or a shure sm7b for yet higher end. A fifine k688 is also a good option.
- eurekin 4y ago
  For a quick one-offs OP could also try Adobe Podcast AI enhancer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWdOsO92gCY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWdOsO92gCY
- bvisness 4y ago
  I actually did get sound panels for my room, but I apparently need more, because they did a pretty disappointing job. I also need a mic arm that doesn't spontaneously collapse when I move it closer to my face. (Don't buy Blue Yeti's mic arm.) I'll definitely consider a dynamic microphone for my next big on-stream project, whenever that happens. (I have no idea when it will happen.)
sadpolishdev 4y ago
You could say it was not on ps1 / psx, I was expecting some good retro stuff. Before anyone starts complaining - i dont know what "dreams" is, and title just says "advent of code on playstation", which implies doing challenge on 25 year old console.
- Wowfunhappy 4y ago
  I am writing this comment on a Mac. I am not writing this comment on the original Mac released in 1984.
  - ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
    Mac has a genericity that Playstation doesn't. Two mostly contemporary Macs can run mostly the same software, two Playstations can't, the naming scheme is also much more complicated for Mac than it is for Playstation. As a result when you speak of your Playstation device it's expected that you should specify the number, and Playstation reads as Playstation 1.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - alexeldeib 4y ago
      I don’t think this is as true as you claim. The switch to M1, the switch to intel before that, various changes in macOS…meanwhile PlayStation games often did port to newer generations, typically at least 1 generation off but I can play some ps2 games on ps5. A bit of a stretch but I think the OP here was incredibly nitpicking regardless of the software compat
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lostgame 4y ago
  Absolutely. As a retro console homebrew dev, I was very disappointed in the article when I realized it wasn’t for the PS1/PSX. Needs a 5 in the title.
neontomo 4y ago
Seems that for a beginner, a visual experience while programming could be helpful to understand the problem and tie it to something that feels real and tangible, but that it also slows the process down a lot because of the need to move around in a physical space and so on. I have a feeling that many hardcore programmers would be resistant to a visual programming experience, even if it were optimised better than this game, but your project made me wonder if somewhere in between could be a sweet spot. Imagine writing code, and when you get stuck, you put a VR set on and the code is visualised in a virtual room, as objects, with parameters and connections and you could walk through the code by scrolling time backwards and forwards. It might help you get unstuck and fix the problem while actually understanding the issue, not just trial and error.
- bvisness 4y ago
  I think the Dreams logic system is good at orchestrating high-level behavior, and not actually great at building complex logic. Dreams works not because you can visualize your timers and variables and toggles, but because the underlying game systems are extremely well-designed and easy to control with such a system. In a sense, a lot of the difficult stuff has been pushed behind the scenes. This is not a criticism; I think it's a very good way to design programming environments for others to use.
twobitshifter 4y ago
> “Purity” in Dreams logic isn’t exactly the same as “pure functions” in programming; I don’t know if functional programmers would consider any state machine to be “pure”. But Dreams is, at its heart, a bunch of state machines talking to each other[4]. If you want something to be reusable, keep side effects out of it. Thoughts on this?
- masklinn 4y ago
  FSMs are common in functional programs though possibly informally. The FSM itself is just a function of (st, event) -> (st, value). Or possibly a bunch of st -> (st, value) functions (where each function represents an event / transition). It's a common informal way to integrate side-effects in a pure program, the impurity becomes an event or event-set over which the machine (usually composite) is integrated (via something like scan).
BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
that's cool as hell, great post
upwardbound 4y ago
It seems like learning to use Dreams is training you to design transistor level logic, including complicated stuff like how to build an asynchronous circuit or a circuit with multiple power and clock domains. You could put this knowledge to use in designing a real-life custom semiconductor IC. To get a custom chip made for cheap or free, I think you can try googling for something called a semiconductor shuttle service, which is where they fabricate your project along with a bunch of others, for cheap or free.

244 points by azhenley 4y ago

The title is a bit misleading, the author did 15 days of AoC in a game creation platform for the PS4. I at first thought the title meant the author had done AoC on a PlayStation (as in PSX). Still interesting to see the demonstrations run.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bebop 4y ago
A PS1 or PSX would be helpful in the title. I too expected a retro game implementation. PS4 and Dreams is indeed, also very cool though.
- bmitc 4y ago
  > A PS1 or PSX would be helpful in the title. Why? Dreams is a PlayStation 4 and 5 game.
  - sli 4y ago
    The title is easily read as being about writing code to run in a PSX emulator or on modded hardware, rather than being about using Dreams for it's mostly-intended purpose. We use the terms PSX/PS2/etc. for a reason, and that alone would clarify the title quite a lot. Mentioning Dreams in the title would help, too.
    - bmitc 4y ago
      Yes, I know. But the post has nothing to do with a PS1 or PSX, so why would they be helpful in the title?
      - masklinn 4y ago
        I think they just misworded that being more specific about the exact platform would be helpful: - the title mentions PlayStation, but all the oldies will assume that's a PS1, or possibly whichever PS gen they grew up with - the actual PS gen isn't even relevant really, this is more about doing it in Dreams than on a given device
le-mark 4y ago
Indeed, are there any PSX homebrew folks around who have done this or something similar?
- goosedragons 4y ago
  Yes. Sony actually sold a consumer PS1 dev kit called the Net Yaroze. Some games made using that ended up on Playstation demo discs.
  - Pulcinella 4y ago
    Though I believe Sony made the graphics chip largely unavailable for use on the Net Yaroze (at least directly) as a opposed to a true dev kit where developers had access to the full hardware.
- spicyjpeg 4y ago
  I have been almost single-handedly maintaining and expanding one of the largest open source PlayStation 1 SDKs [1] over the last year, adding all sorts of things from video playback to a dynamic linker. There are still plenty of bugs to fix and things to improve, but I think it can already be considered production ready for the most part. Unfortunately, however, the tooling around PS1 development still has a long way to go; while there are e.g. several open source image or audio conversion tools, none of them are on par with old Sony tools in terms of features. In fact most people still use the official SDK complete with its 1998-era compiler, despite its bloat and heavy use of undocumented proprietary file formats. [1]: https://github.com/Lameguy64/PSn00bSDK https://github.com/Lameguy64/PSn00bSDK
psychphysic 4y ago
Agree, this is a playstation in the sense that my mum called the NES thru the Wii a Nintendo.
- thundermuffin 4y ago
  No, let's be fair to the author. It's a PlayStation in the sense it's named a Sony Playstation 4. Colloquially in the US (where the author is from), every generation is referred to as a PlayStation and has been since the PS2 days. Nintendo's naming scheme greatly differs from the way Sony does it, and I don't think it's it's good faith to the author to act like they're being dense or stupid.
  - masklinn 4y ago
    > No, let's be fair to the author. It's a PlayStation in the sense it's named a Sony Playstation 4. So in the sense that it says nothing interesting about the article. The PS3 originally supported alternative OS ("OtherOS" feature), in which sense doing advent of code on a playstation is no different than doing it on any computer from circa 2005.
    - psychphysic 4y ago
      Agree while I like the article the title is misleading. Similarly PS2 Linux was official[0]. There was also an implementation of basic. For the PSX there was the Net Yaroze[1]. Allowing game development and sharing. The several of the Nintendo consoles have smileBASIC (petitComputer)[2]. Heck you can boot Linux and Steam on the PS4 these days...[3]. Finally, there are SDKs available for every Sony and Nintendo console of the modern era. DevkitPro is generally excellent[5]. This article should be called I did advent of code in Dreams. But got to get dem clicks. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2 [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Yaroze https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Yaroze [2] https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/SmileBASIC-4-1763115.html https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-so... [4] https://gbatemp.net/threads/ps4-linux-bzimages-for-all-versions-of-ps4.615085/ https://gbatemp.net/threads/ps4-linux-bzimages-for-all-versi... [5] https://devkitpro.org/ https://devkitpro.org/
hcs 4y ago
My first thought was the Linux kits for PS2 and PS3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS I wasn't disappointed, though, this is a pretty cool project!
- frou_dh 4y ago
  I did some non-game programming on a PS2 Linux Kit and it wasn't particularly interesting. Just sitting at a normal Linux CLI with ancient versions of tools.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

MisterSandman 4y ago

Dreams is amazing, this is really awesome work!

ta988 4y ago

The title doesn't reflect how impressive that is.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

musha68k 4y ago

What a whimsical article, I had totally forgotten about Dreams! Also finally a good excuse to buy a PS5: Build a 100% fun time LISP interpreter in VR! No Meta creep stack required! Let's hope the new US run Sony / PlayStation doesn't axe Media Molecule for excessive efficiency reasons like they did with Studio Japan. It's crazy outlier teams / projects that made PlayStation special / what it is today.

nicolas_t 4y ago
I hadn't heard about that, what a shortsighted decision, most of the exclusives that ever made me buy Sony's consoles were either made by Media molecule or Japan studio...
- rubyist5eva 4y ago
  Japan Studio made my favorite game of all time (in collaboration with From Software): Bloodborne. I had no idea they shuttered Japan Studio, that makes me sad...and even more depressed that Bloodborne will likely not get a PC Port or PS5 patch it rightly deserves.
  - shinymark 4y ago
    Considering how similar Bloodborne is to other From Software games I assumed it was developed 100% at From with Sony as the publisher. But I have no idea what the reality is. Did Japan Studio do development work on the game too? If so, I’d be curious to know how they split up the development work between teams.
    - rubyist5eva 4y ago
      Japan Studio is credited in the game and actually pitched the original concept to Hidetaka Miyazaki because they specifically wanted to work with From Software. I’m not sure how “collaborative” the actual development was though. I guess the way I worded my original reply made it seem that Japan Studio was the primary developer but I’m pretty sure it was primarily From Software. https://youtu.be/oiGPTI06fn8 https://youtu.be/oiGPTI06fn8

chungus 4y ago

This is just great, makes me want to tinker with Dreams.

danielvaughn 4y ago
It's amazing. I love it so much, the only drawback is that it's tied to the Playstation. If it weren't, it would be a much bigger presence because the creation tools were unlike anything I've ever seen before.
- bvisness 4y ago
  It would be great if they could at least bring the runtime to PC so that people could distribute their games more widely - although at that point you might as well have the whole editor too.
  - danielvaughn 4y ago
    I’ve been thinking about this a lot as well. I think it’s doubtful that they’ll port it since MM is owned by Sony. But I agree it would be excellent. What I’m imagining is something like Dreams that is supported by a whole editor. There’s just something about their approach that feels so much more accessible than any game dev tool I’ve come across. It’s really amazing. Once WebGPU becomes a reality, it might even be possible to port Dreams content to the web.

ec109685 4y ago

This brings me back to EE in college as a CS student just trying to make logic work and hitting race conditions left and right (and adding workaround after workarounds), versus the environment I was used to where a program is executed sequentially.

bvisness 4y ago
I would love to see someone with electronics experience use Dreams for a while. My total electronics experience is Snap Circuits and Ben Eater videos, so I can't make as rich a connection to electronics as you might hope from an article like this. Maybe there are techniques from real-world circuit design that would actually transfer to Dreams, who knows?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mosselman 4y ago

On an unrelated note. I see you are using a condensor microphone af quite a distance. You have to bump the gain a lot in order to be understood, but with condensor mics that means you will pick up a lot of noise. You can clearly hear the reflections of your voice in the room which has a negative impact on your sound quality. You can either treat the room with sound panelling, put the mic a lot closer so you can lower the gain, but ideally you’d get a dynamic microphone. Dynamic microphones are less likely to pick up reflections and other noise, but you still have to have it up close. It is also less work than treating a room such as you were in in the video I saw. Lately I’ve been deep diving into microphones and after hours of investigations this is what I’ve learned. Suggestions: the Fduce sl40 if you want a budget option or the deity vo-7u for a bit higher end or a shure sm7b for yet higher end. A fifine k688 is also a good option.

eurekin 4y ago
For a quick one-offs OP could also try Adobe Podcast AI enhancer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWdOsO92gCY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWdOsO92gCY
bvisness 4y ago
I actually did get sound panels for my room, but I apparently need more, because they did a pretty disappointing job. I also need a mic arm that doesn't spontaneously collapse when I move it closer to my face. (Don't buy Blue Yeti's mic arm.) I'll definitely consider a dynamic microphone for my next big on-stream project, whenever that happens. (I have no idea when it will happen.)

sadpolishdev 4y ago

You could say it was not on ps1 / psx, I was expecting some good retro stuff. Before anyone starts complaining - i dont know what "dreams" is, and title just says "advent of code on playstation", which implies doing challenge on 25 year old console.

Wowfunhappy 4y ago
I am writing this comment on a Mac. I am not writing this comment on the original Mac released in 1984.
- ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
  Mac has a genericity that Playstation doesn't. Two mostly contemporary Macs can run mostly the same software, two Playstations can't, the naming scheme is also much more complicated for Mac than it is for Playstation. As a result when you speak of your Playstation device it's expected that you should specify the number, and Playstation reads as Playstation 1.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - alexeldeib 4y ago
    I don’t think this is as true as you claim. The switch to M1, the switch to intel before that, various changes in macOS…meanwhile PlayStation games often did port to newer generations, typically at least 1 generation off but I can play some ps2 games on ps5. A bit of a stretch but I think the OP here was incredibly nitpicking regardless of the software compat
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lostgame 4y ago
Absolutely. As a retro console homebrew dev, I was very disappointed in the article when I realized it wasn’t for the PS1/PSX. Needs a 5 in the title.

neontomo 4y ago

Seems that for a beginner, a visual experience while programming could be helpful to understand the problem and tie it to something that feels real and tangible, but that it also slows the process down a lot because of the need to move around in a physical space and so on. I have a feeling that many hardcore programmers would be resistant to a visual programming experience, even if it were optimised better than this game, but your project made me wonder if somewhere in between could be a sweet spot. Imagine writing code, and when you get stuck, you put a VR set on and the code is visualised in a virtual room, as objects, with parameters and connections and you could walk through the code by scrolling time backwards and forwards. It might help you get unstuck and fix the problem while actually understanding the issue, not just trial and error.

bvisness 4y ago
I think the Dreams logic system is good at orchestrating high-level behavior, and not actually great at building complex logic. Dreams works not because you can visualize your timers and variables and toggles, but because the underlying game systems are extremely well-designed and easy to control with such a system. In a sense, a lot of the difficult stuff has been pushed behind the scenes. This is not a criticism; I think it's a very good way to design programming environments for others to use.

twobitshifter 4y ago

> “Purity” in Dreams logic isn’t exactly the same as “pure functions” in programming; I don’t know if functional programmers would consider any state machine to be “pure”. But Dreams is, at its heart, a bunch of state machines talking to each other[4]. If you want something to be reusable, keep side effects out of it. Thoughts on this?

masklinn 4y ago
FSMs are common in functional programs though possibly informally. The FSM itself is just a function of (st, event) -> (st, value). Or possibly a bunch of st -> (st, value) functions (where each function represents an event / transition). It's a common informal way to integrate side-effects in a pure program, the impurity becomes an event or event-set over which the machine (usually composite) is integrated (via something like scan).

BaculumMeumEst 4y ago

that's cool as hell, great post

upwardbound 4y ago

It seems like learning to use Dreams is training you to design transistor level logic, including complicated stuff like how to build an asynchronous circuit or a circuit with multiple power and clock domains. You could put this knowledge to use in designing a real-life custom semiconductor IC. To get a custom chip made for cheap or free, I think you can try googling for something called a semiconductor shuttle service, which is where they fabricate your project along with a bunch of others, for cheap or free.