I'm working on totally pointless projects right now.
It's fucking great.
I even wrote a little assembler for it in 200 LOCs, I can write little programs in my made up assembly language and compile them and run them on the made up cpu.
This it what the little assembly language looks like:
https://git.sr.ht/~rabbits/gyo/tree/master/boot.s
The vm and the assembler combined is about 400 lines of c89 code that compiles on #plan9's pcc.
Built a little VM in 400 lines of C. Implemented IO, 4 addressing modes and managed to write "Hello"!!
@neauoire whenever people at the office ask me about my summer projects it’s a bit awkward to tell them that it’s all pretty useless in the grand scheme of things and certainly a total waste of time commercially. So I just smile mumble and hand wave. It’s weird because we can’t play the computer like we can play a flute, apparently, socially.
@kensanata @neauoire I've never really played the computer unless it was something specifically designed with the intention of play. You have me thinking I have to change that.
@kensanata @neauoire That is rather sad, old chap...
@kensanata @neauoire computers a playing me
A good reading about uselessness of projects:
@GustavinoBevilacqua I remember the abrupt end of the book when the protagonist drowns. Thanks for the reminder.
@neauoire
@kensanata @neauoire my summer project included an up lifting active recruitment status for a law enforcement job. Followed by the crushing reality that my eye sight is so poor I'll never again be able to accept a job like that. So, I spent time under my desk crying like Robin Scherbatsky.
@thriftygamer83 having bought my first glasses in 2020 I sympathize. The body’s decay over time is breaking my heart.
@neauoire Unalienated play
@neauoire dangerous territory there... work, utility, meaning, validity
@tehn
@neauoire
whatever inspires, us or others. to show that humankind is not fixed, not on tracks, that we, our will, can be exercised to draw forth.
work is a dangerous term, misleading, as good work collapsed into a Graeber-ian (RIP) Bullshit Jobs situation. i've never experienced a job that embraces my desires to do really good, to make great programs, slowly; everywhere everyone expects compromise, shipping it. i slack & dawdle some, a decent but no where near my capabilities employee, & keep trying to scrap together my own more noble expeditious (non-commercial) attempts.
that is the true work, the golden path, whether it be the right & final path, or merely wayfinding, some subharmony of the vast open symphony, or just ill formed screwballing.
@neauoire soon this will be a zachtronics game but only famicons running plan9.
@neauoire zachtronics games are very good in this useless, feels like best part of coding, ways so I think he would be about this life.
I remember when notch planned on releasing a game where the spaceship ran his fantasy cpu and you controlled everything with its assembly language. He released its machine spec and nothing else.
@peregrine @neauoire RIP Project Trillek.
i wish someone resurrected it but using RISC-V and maybe an existing engine. (so that it would actually get a 1.0 release)
@peregrine @neauoire The DCPU-16.
Too bad it's gotten so hard to find the spec itself, the core website went offline a couple of years ago.
@neauoire I've been wanting to do something like this.
A long time ago, I started on https://www.nand2tetris.org/ and then fell off, with the goal of someday implementing it in FPGA.
@neauoire ...today I watched a couple of youtube videos, and stared blankly at an empty VDMX project
@neauoire why do u have gyo in the bg
@congalala I'm not sure
@neauoire understandable have a gamer day
@neauoire Sometimes I have only the faintest idea of what you're doing technically but I always appreciate the care you put into making an image that is an aesthetic object to showcase the work
@neauoire "This new computer... it needs a shark"
@dualhammers I am right there with you!
@neauoire (and others on here) make all those amazing things that go waaaay over my head. I hope that over time I will absorb some of that knowledge. In the meantime, I am so along for this aesthetic ride!
@FredBednarski @neauoire For me they go over my head mostly because I look at them, think "ah, hey, that's nice" and feel no urge to learn any more.
@dualhammers @FredBednarski I don't even understand what I'm doing so I don't blame you.
@neauoire @dualhammers @FredBednarski one of my favorite marvel characters is forge. his power is he can intuitively invent very complex machines, but it sorta just happens. he can’t explain how the things work or how invented them. I get this feeling all the time.
@zensaiyuki @neauoire @FredBednarski Also he has a sick sense of style
@neauoire Am distracted by Gyo and Taste of Tea
@neauoire "i'll use a single board computer with no internet to stay focused, but hey, let's put a shark in the background"
@Bl4ckb0ne GYYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
@npisanti "GET BACK TO WORK" says the shark.
@neauoire makes sense, it looks pretty convincing! xD
@neauoire That is really cool!
@neauoire "The Taste of Tea"
@neauoire For what are you building a VM? :o
@neauoire Very good
@neauoire That’s a cute walking fishie.
@Shufei fish-with-legs 
@neauoire hell yeah
@neauoire oh my gosh that's awesome!
IDK if you've ever played TIS-100, but that was a blasty blast.
@kvothe no I haven't, I'll look it up
@neauoire So I'm supposed to be deciding on what classes to register for by tomorrow. Instead, I am playing with this. Then, as I was about to pause, I find that you've made another commit. Please stop terrorizing me with this fun ;(
@exprez135 Sorry XD I found an issue with the JEQ/JNE opcodes. I won't touch it again for the night.
Tomorrow, I want to implement OS functions so I can draw pixels on the screen.
@neauoire Haha, no problem. All your recent Plan9 posting and stuff like this has led me down some deep rabbit holes, but I'm loving it :) I'm excited to do more with this tomorrow. Learning so much!
@exprez135 Let me know if you have any questions! Keep posted posted :)
@exprez135 choose your classes!!
So today I built a little imaginary computer with 16 registers, 256 addressable rom and memory addresses and status flags. The cpu understands 16 op codes.