6 ms·

The Uxn Ecosystem

257 points by tonyg 3y ago

pSYoniK 3y ago
I think 100r reminds me of the thing we're missing the most nowaydays - bravery. We're afraid to take chances, to explore ideas, to take a slightly harder path or to explore difficult challenges. We're risk averse and we're unwilling to try new things. Reading about their trips, about all the work they do on the boat and their approach to code (love the concept of making software for one person!) makes me feel like a coward and how I would love to be more brave about how I deal with code, life and the environment around me... I appreciate all your work Rek and Devine. I'm glad yo see you busy doing nothing...
- immibis 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - pSYoniK 3y ago
    This has got to be one of the saddest replies possible. We have everything to gain from it. If we're unwilling or unable to explore the parts of existence that scare us we cannot possibly come up woth new things. It is the very essence of our evolution and growth, going beyond the comfortable and known. Capitalism is easily the worst thing that has happened to us.
    - mattpallissard 3y ago
      > Capitalism is easily the worst thing that has happened to us. Oh, I don't know about that. Sure capitalism is bad, but some of the worst famines and genocides came out of communist societies.
  - lioeters 3y ago
    > capitalism will crush you in the end It's already crushing the majority of us. Unless some people are brave enough to forge alternate paths and live different lives, it will crush the rest of us too eventually.
    - immibis 3y ago
      Living your life on a boat in the middle of the ocean means you are not spending your life crushing capitalism back. I saw a quote today somewhere on the fediverse: "It’s not the barricade but the rifle that you have to hold onto." - Buenaventura Durruti If you defend your one boat from capitalism, while it subsumes everything around it, what have you really won?
      - msy 3y ago
        Freedom to live your life on your own terms and as evidenced by this thread, providing a beacon on the path others can choose to follow.
  - exikyut 3y ago
    The understanding that initiative enlightenment is the fact that bravery is universally fungible across domains. This eliminates the need to define the "correct" way of doing things as "the way everyone else does it", because you can acquire the bravery to accomplish your most important goals from any other domain. You can break the narrative. The first step is just to have the bravery to start. That's where I'm stuck at fwiw. :/
esoprogramming 3y ago
2021 interview with 100r https://esoteric.codes/blog/100-rabbits https://esoteric.codes/blog/100-rabbits
zzo38computer 3y ago
I had done some stuff with uxn and I wrote my own emulator too (called uxn38); uxn is not too difficult to implement. I think that is is better than some similar designs. I am glad that it does not use Unicode. There are other advantages, too. But, there are some problems, such as the lack of seeking files, and the friend port is no good because it ends up being too complicated (even if it seems simple).
tonyg 3y ago
This is a fascinating and elegant little virtual machine design that I think many here would find interesting.
- rollcat 3y ago
  What blows me away is how practical it is. They've ported it to every piece of junk they had laying around, and wrote tons of software. It's not just a design on someone's web page, they're making tools, games, art.
  - anthk 3y ago
    For gaming it's good, but sadly for software it lacks Unicode support. I wouldn't mind basic support with GNU unifont in further revisions. Altough the complexity would skyrocket. Then, if I wanted to write an adventure in Spanish I would omit the tildes, starting question/interrogation symbols and I would map ñ to ny.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 3y ago
      > for software it lacks Unicode support That's not an inherent limitation of the VM at least, just of the current software ecosystem. It would be possible and practical to make a tiny unifont-based Unicode text library. Though handling bidirectional text, joined scripts and vertical scripts would be something else… :(
      - rollcat 3y ago
        This illustrates just how complex even the "basic" stuff turns out to be in practice. Text rendering hates you[1]. Even if you take obvious shortcuts/compromises like limiting yourself to monospace, you'll get bitten by "double width" characters. Kudos to those who try, rather than bundling a copy of Chrome with their chat app. [1]: https://faultlore.com/blah/text-hates-you/ https://faultlore.com/blah/text-hates-you/
        3y ago
zetalyrae 3y ago
I admire this team very much. See also this great article about searching for simpler and simpler models of computing: https://100r.co/site/weathering_software_winter.html https://100r.co/site/weathering_software_winter.html
- dang 3y ago
  Discussed here: Weathering Software Winter - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34219654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34219654 - Jan 2023 (28 comments)
enricozb 3y ago
Everything about this group is fascinating. They are digital nomads on a boat. Every article [0] is a peek into an existence I didn't think or even consider was possible. I always get thrown into a rabbit hole when I visit their site. In another life maybe. [0]: https://100r.co/site/dry_toilet_installation.html https://100r.co/site/dry_toilet_installation.html
- swah 3y ago
  Shitting in the seas is more complex than I thought.
  - mattpallissard 3y ago
    Not always. A lot of the boats I've been on opt for a bucket instead of a head.
- chubot 3y ago
  I'm really impressed that they have the energy / motivation / time to write a virtual machine after dealing with all these "real world" issues ! Also impressed that it runs on a lot of real hardware apparently. I have seen many VM projects but they seem kind of isolated within other computers. The extreme constraints definitely push the design in a different direction
  - anthk 3y ago
    Yeah, the same witht the Z-machine for text adventures (and terminal games like tetris, trek or rogue for the Z-machine) . Once you compile the game with Inform6 (an easier OOP lang than Python, rooms and objects are described almost as if they were a config file), the game runs from DOS/Amiga/Atari machines to Win/Lin/Mac/Android/iOS and even Haiku.
- userbinator 3y ago
  into a rabbit hole Pun intended, I suppose.
carlotte 3y ago
[dead]
emmanueloga_ 3y ago
Any Blame! fans? [1] [2] 1: https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/devine_lu_linvega.html https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/devine_lu_linvega.html 2: https://blame.fandom.com/wiki/Davine_Lu_Linvega https://blame.fandom.com/wiki/Davine_Lu_Linvega
- wint3rmute 3y ago
  Both Blame! and Ergo Proxy[1] :) 1: https://100r.co/site/pino.html https://100r.co/site/pino.html
forward-slashed 3y ago
A very inspiring duo.
NeutralForest 3y ago
I always love to see them on the front page, not only is the software they write really interesting, all the works they're doing to make the boat as self-sufficient as possible is incredible.
Klonoar 3y ago
One of their sites I actually check often is their recipes one: https://grimgrains.com/site/home.html https://grimgrains.com/site/home.html Some fun stuff in there, for the chef/cooking types around here.
sph 3y ago
The author's account on Mastodon (https://merveilles.town/@neauoire https://merveilles.town/@neauoire) is a treasure trove of many cool little projects and screenshots from the parallel computing universe that is Devine's computer. I strongly recommend the podcast episode with him at Future of Coding: https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/044.html https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/044.html and the follow up where he talks about Orca, his incredible live music environment: https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/045.html https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/045.html He's, along with the old Lispers on these forum, the reason why I'm spending so much time thinking about alternative computing and niche programming languages. Uxn is on my todo list, I'm busy with the Smalltalk family these days before diving in on Forth and Uxn :)
- tyrust 3y ago
  >him It says "they/them" right there on the mastodon profile you linked.
- zzo38computer 3y ago
  They mentioned a calendar that breaks the year into twenty-six fortnights labeled by alphabets A to Z. But, 26 fortnights is only 364 days. Are you going to make years of only 364 days in this calendar, or will adding extra days beyond these 26 fortnights, or something else?
anthk 3y ago
Retro style gaming based in Forth, low specs, virtual machine ported to nearly everywhere. Kinda like the Z-Machine, but for pixels. Good for GB style games without battling the Z80-like instructions and without worring if you would burn the physical LCD on a weird cycle timing bug on displaying sprites.
burglins 3y ago
uxn is one of those things I know of and read about for quite a long time, but never end up trying myself. Those "limited on purpose" community-supported systems are a really cool concept.
zellyn 3y ago
Maxine Chevalier-Boisvert (of note here due to her Basic Block Versioning JIT work and more recently yjit) has been working on similar ideas recently… https://pointersgonewild.com/2023/02/24/building-a-minimalistic-virtual-machine/ https://pointersgonewild.com/2023/02/24/building-a-minimalis...
BookhouseGames 3y ago
Devine and Rekka are great and I love what they do and how they do it.

257 points by tonyg 3y ago

I think 100r reminds me of the thing we're missing the most nowaydays - bravery. We're afraid to take chances, to explore ideas, to take a slightly harder path or to explore difficult challenges. We're risk averse and we're unwilling to try new things. Reading about their trips, about all the work they do on the boat and their approach to code (love the concept of making software for one person!) makes me feel like a coward and how I would love to be more brave about how I deal with code, life and the environment around me... I appreciate all your work Rek and Devine. I'm glad yo see you busy doing nothing...

immibis 3y ago
[flagged]
- pSYoniK 3y ago
  This has got to be one of the saddest replies possible. We have everything to gain from it. If we're unwilling or unable to explore the parts of existence that scare us we cannot possibly come up woth new things. It is the very essence of our evolution and growth, going beyond the comfortable and known. Capitalism is easily the worst thing that has happened to us.
  - mattpallissard 3y ago
    > Capitalism is easily the worst thing that has happened to us. Oh, I don't know about that. Sure capitalism is bad, but some of the worst famines and genocides came out of communist societies.
- lioeters 3y ago
  > capitalism will crush you in the end It's already crushing the majority of us. Unless some people are brave enough to forge alternate paths and live different lives, it will crush the rest of us too eventually.
  - immibis 3y ago
    Living your life on a boat in the middle of the ocean means you are not spending your life crushing capitalism back. I saw a quote today somewhere on the fediverse: "It’s not the barricade but the rifle that you have to hold onto." - Buenaventura Durruti If you defend your one boat from capitalism, while it subsumes everything around it, what have you really won?
    - msy 3y ago
      Freedom to live your life on your own terms and as evidenced by this thread, providing a beacon on the path others can choose to follow.
- exikyut 3y ago
  The understanding that initiative enlightenment is the fact that bravery is universally fungible across domains. This eliminates the need to define the "correct" way of doing things as "the way everyone else does it", because you can acquire the bravery to accomplish your most important goals from any other domain. You can break the narrative. The first step is just to have the bravery to start. That's where I'm stuck at fwiw. :/

esoprogramming 3y ago

2021 interview with 100r https://esoteric.codes/blog/100-rabbits https://esoteric.codes/blog/100-rabbits

zzo38computer 3y ago

I had done some stuff with uxn and I wrote my own emulator too (called uxn38); uxn is not too difficult to implement. I think that is is better than some similar designs. I am glad that it does not use Unicode. There are other advantages, too. But, there are some problems, such as the lack of seeking files, and the friend port is no good because it ends up being too complicated (even if it seems simple).

tonyg 3y ago

This is a fascinating and elegant little virtual machine design that I think many here would find interesting.

rollcat 3y ago
What blows me away is how practical it is. They've ported it to every piece of junk they had laying around, and wrote tons of software. It's not just a design on someone's web page, they're making tools, games, art.
- anthk 3y ago
  For gaming it's good, but sadly for software it lacks Unicode support. I wouldn't mind basic support with GNU unifont in further revisions. Altough the complexity would skyrocket. Then, if I wanted to write an adventure in Spanish I would omit the tildes, starting question/interrogation symbols and I would map ñ to ny.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 3y ago
    > for software it lacks Unicode support That's not an inherent limitation of the VM at least, just of the current software ecosystem. It would be possible and practical to make a tiny unifont-based Unicode text library. Though handling bidirectional text, joined scripts and vertical scripts would be something else… :(
    - rollcat 3y ago
      This illustrates just how complex even the "basic" stuff turns out to be in practice. Text rendering hates you[1]. Even if you take obvious shortcuts/compromises like limiting yourself to monospace, you'll get bitten by "double width" characters. Kudos to those who try, rather than bundling a copy of Chrome with their chat app. [1]: https://faultlore.com/blah/text-hates-you/ https://faultlore.com/blah/text-hates-you/
      - 3y ago

zetalyrae 3y ago

I admire this team very much. See also this great article about searching for simpler and simpler models of computing: https://100r.co/site/weathering_software_winter.html https://100r.co/site/weathering_software_winter.html

dang 3y ago
Discussed here: Weathering Software Winter - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34219654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34219654 - Jan 2023 (28 comments)

enricozb 3y ago

Everything about this group is fascinating. They are digital nomads on a boat. Every article [0] is a peek into an existence I didn't think or even consider was possible. I always get thrown into a rabbit hole when I visit their site. In another life maybe. [0]: https://100r.co/site/dry_toilet_installation.html https://100r.co/site/dry_toilet_installation.html

swah 3y ago
Shitting in the seas is more complex than I thought.
- mattpallissard 3y ago
  Not always. A lot of the boats I've been on opt for a bucket instead of a head.
chubot 3y ago
I'm really impressed that they have the energy / motivation / time to write a virtual machine after dealing with all these "real world" issues ! Also impressed that it runs on a lot of real hardware apparently. I have seen many VM projects but they seem kind of isolated within other computers. The extreme constraints definitely push the design in a different direction
- anthk 3y ago
  Yeah, the same witht the Z-machine for text adventures (and terminal games like tetris, trek or rogue for the Z-machine) . Once you compile the game with Inform6 (an easier OOP lang than Python, rooms and objects are described almost as if they were a config file), the game runs from DOS/Amiga/Atari machines to Win/Lin/Mac/Android/iOS and even Haiku.
userbinator 3y ago
into a rabbit hole Pun intended, I suppose.

carlotte 3y ago

[dead]

emmanueloga_ 3y ago

Any Blame! fans? [1] [2] 1: https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/devine_lu_linvega.html https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/devine_lu_linvega.html 2: https://blame.fandom.com/wiki/Davine_Lu_Linvega https://blame.fandom.com/wiki/Davine_Lu_Linvega

wint3rmute 3y ago
Both Blame! and Ergo Proxy[1] :) 1: https://100r.co/site/pino.html https://100r.co/site/pino.html

forward-slashed 3y ago

A very inspiring duo.

NeutralForest 3y ago

I always love to see them on the front page, not only is the software they write really interesting, all the works they're doing to make the boat as self-sufficient as possible is incredible.

Klonoar 3y ago

One of their sites I actually check often is their recipes one: https://grimgrains.com/site/home.html https://grimgrains.com/site/home.html Some fun stuff in there, for the chef/cooking types around here.

sph 3y ago

The author's account on Mastodon (https://merveilles.town/@neauoire https://merveilles.town/@neauoire) is a treasure trove of many cool little projects and screenshots from the parallel computing universe that is Devine's computer. I strongly recommend the podcast episode with him at Future of Coding: https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/044.html https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/044.html and the follow up where he talks about Orca, his incredible live music environment: https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/045.html https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/045.html He's, along with the old Lispers on these forum, the reason why I'm spending so much time thinking about alternative computing and niche programming languages. Uxn is on my todo list, I'm busy with the Smalltalk family these days before diving in on Forth and Uxn :)

tyrust 3y ago
>him It says "they/them" right there on the mastodon profile you linked.
zzo38computer 3y ago
They mentioned a calendar that breaks the year into twenty-six fortnights labeled by alphabets A to Z. But, 26 fortnights is only 364 days. Are you going to make years of only 364 days in this calendar, or will adding extra days beyond these 26 fortnights, or something else?

anthk 3y ago

Retro style gaming based in Forth, low specs, virtual machine ported to nearly everywhere. Kinda like the Z-Machine, but for pixels. Good for GB style games without battling the Z80-like instructions and without worring if you would burn the physical LCD on a weird cycle timing bug on displaying sprites.

burglins 3y ago

uxn is one of those things I know of and read about for quite a long time, but never end up trying myself. Those "limited on purpose" community-supported systems are a really cool concept.

zellyn 3y ago

Maxine Chevalier-Boisvert (of note here due to her Basic Block Versioning JIT work and more recently yjit) has been working on similar ideas recently… https://pointersgonewild.com/2023/02/24/building-a-minimalistic-virtual-machine/ https://pointersgonewild.com/2023/02/24/building-a-minimalis...

BookhouseGames 3y ago

Devine and Rekka are great and I love what they do and how they do it.