TheBackShed.com

Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Mini Micro Fantasy Computer

Author

Message

RetroJoe

Senior Member

Joined: 06/08/2020
Location: Canada
Posts: 290

Posted: 09:14pm 17 Dec 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

Hey, everyone. It's been a while since I posted anything, but I do check in from time to time to see what's cooking in the Shed :)

I recently came across this project that I found very intriguing, and that should appeal to the "retro computing" community here (i.e. as distinct from the core microcontroller one).

I came across this project somewhat accidentally, when I stumbled into a whole new computing hobbyist sub-genre called "fantasy consoles". These are rendered entirely in software and have the (very limited) specs of early game consoles (think Atari VCS, et al). The most popular projects appear to be Pico-8 and TIC-80.

In the same vein, but moving up the sophistication spectrum quite a bit, this post is about a fantasy computer called Mini Micro, and it uses a Pythonic language called MiniScript.

I've been playing with it for a few days, and it has a very similar vibe to that of MMBasic on the CMM2 e.g. it has a console mode with rudimentary file system and DOS commands, an editor mode (shown below), software sprites, music and sound capabilities, etc.

The only limitation I can see is it was developed with the Unity platform, so there's a 32MB or so Unity runtime that it needs to run, and the actual Unity project source files are proprietary (that won't be a problem for me - everytime I try to dabble in Unity I get a headache that lasts for several days :)

Also, it is zippy enough on my i7 machine to play rudimentary games, but I don't think it is anywhere near the blistering speed of my CMM2.

In any case, hope you have a chance to take a look and share your thoughts - it feels like a nice little retro computing "gem" worth exploring!

Wishing everyone at TBS happy holidays!

Edited 2022-12-18 07:16 by RetroJoe

Enjoy Every Sandwich / Joe P.

JohnS
Guru

Joined: 18/11/2011
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 4147

Posted: 02:30pm 18 Dec 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

If you run it on an i7 maybe use MMB4W instead. Very CMM2-like.

John

toml_12953
Guru

Joined: 13/02/2015
Location: United States
Posts: 488

Posted: 11:36am 19 Dec 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

RetroJoe said Hey, everyone. It's been a while since I posted anything, but I do check in from time to time to see what's cooking in the Shed :)

I recently came across this project that I found very intriguing, and that should appeal to the "retro computing" community here (i.e. as distinct from the core microcontroller one).

If it ran on tiny hardware, I'd give it a try. On a PC, real Python will do just fine and it's portable.

Print this page

To reply to this topic, you need to log in.