Society for Fantastical Computer Anachronism
March 23, 2024 1:36 PM Subscribe
Welcome to Picotron: Picotron is a Fantasy Workstation for making pixelart games, animations, music, demos and other curiosities. It has a toy operating system designed to be a cosy creative space, but runs on top of Windows, MacOS or Linux. Picotron apps can be made with built-in tools, and shared with other users in a special 256k png cartridge format.
This is the latest from Lexaloffle, makers of PICO-8, the beloved (and extremely limited) 8-bit fantasy console.
Picotron seems a bit more comfortable and a lot more powerful, including a nice app for making pixel art, a fairly deep synthesis engine and tracker, higher resolution (480x270!) as well quality of life features like much more legible fonts, windowed apps, etc.
One of the things I am most looking forward to is seeing all the amazing things this very active community develops.
It feels anachronistic more than simply retro, like running Windows 3.0 on a Pentium V, with CGA graphics. But somehow much more cool and fun than that sounds!
This is the latest from Lexaloffle, makers of PICO-8, the beloved (and extremely limited) 8-bit fantasy console.
Picotron seems a bit more comfortable and a lot more powerful, including a nice app for making pixel art, a fairly deep synthesis engine and tracker, higher resolution (480x270!) as well quality of life features like much more legible fonts, windowed apps, etc.
One of the things I am most looking forward to is seeing all the amazing things this very active community develops.
It feels anachronistic more than simply retro, like running Windows 3.0 on a Pentium V, with CGA graphics. But somehow much more cool and fun than that sounds!
Stage two: the sign masks a basic reality. The image becomes a distortion of reality.
posted by Going To Maine at 1:59 PM on March 23 [4 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 1:59 PM on March 23 [4 favorites]
Zep has a really lovely talk from 2018 which changed my perspective on art, tools, and the process of design in ways I still carry around today. I highly recommend it.
posted by Flaffigan at 2:41 PM on March 23 [6 favorites]
posted by Flaffigan at 2:41 PM on March 23 [6 favorites]
I'm so excited for this. Can't wait to remake my one good game in it lol.
posted by fleacircus at 2:43 PM on March 23 [1 favorite]
posted by fleacircus at 2:43 PM on March 23 [1 favorite]
Am I wrong for thinking there should be a version of this that can run on a Playdate?
posted by hippybear at 3:00 PM on March 23 [2 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 3:00 PM on March 23 [2 favorites]
fleacircus cool, drop me a memail when you do!
I don't know how hard it would be to get this on Playdate, either officially or hackily, but yes I can see this showing up on lots of hardware eventually. RasPi version is expected in late 2024, and I personally would love to get a tiny Linux distro and boot straight into Picotron, using my nice old CRT TV as display :)
I'm looking forward to learning Lua and following some of the basic tutorials. I kind of wanted to do that with P8, but with the tight constraints it was just too cramped and not as beginner friendly as Picotron seems. Fitting complex code into limited tokens is a fun challenge for some but I'd rather write lazier sprawling code and have a few more pixels and colors for my first try at making little games.
posted by SaltySalticid at 3:35 PM on March 23 [3 favorites]
I don't know how hard it would be to get this on Playdate, either officially or hackily, but yes I can see this showing up on lots of hardware eventually. RasPi version is expected in late 2024, and I personally would love to get a tiny Linux distro and boot straight into Picotron, using my nice old CRT TV as display :)
I'm looking forward to learning Lua and following some of the basic tutorials. I kind of wanted to do that with P8, but with the tight constraints it was just too cramped and not as beginner friendly as Picotron seems. Fitting complex code into limited tokens is a fun challenge for some but I'd rather write lazier sprawling code and have a few more pixels and colors for my first try at making little games.
posted by SaltySalticid at 3:35 PM on March 23 [3 favorites]
This looks fun. I'll probably use it about as much as I did Pico-8, though.
Zep's talk is lovely - thanks for the link, Flaffigan!
posted by scruss at 5:59 PM on March 23 [1 favorite]
Zep's talk is lovely - thanks for the link, Flaffigan!
posted by scruss at 5:59 PM on March 23 [1 favorite]
I will have to check this out. I use Pico 8 all the time on my PocketCHIP. I have been impressed that Zep keeps the Pico 8 port for PocketCHIP up-to-date even though the company that made them went belly-up years ago.
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:48 PM on March 23 [1 favorite]
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:48 PM on March 23 [1 favorite]
I've been playing a decent amount of pico8 on my steam deck lately, which is both great and slightly incongruous... But mostly great.
posted by kaibutsu at 7:52 PM on March 23 [1 favorite]
posted by kaibutsu at 7:52 PM on March 23 [1 favorite]
Oh this is great! I can't wait to dig into this when I have some time!
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 11:33 PM on March 23
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 11:33 PM on March 23
→
That's dedication. Most PocketCHIPs have auto-bricked by now. There was something wrong with the flash chip specification with most of them, and so they forget to be a PocketCHIP after a while.
I do hope that the Raspberry Pi port is also available in 64-bit, because it's a huge step up in performance even on the same hardware. The Raspberry Pi 5 can't even run in 32-bit mode
posted by scruss at 5:38 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]
Zep keeps the Pico 8 port for PocketCHIP up-to-date
That's dedication. Most PocketCHIPs have auto-bricked by now. There was something wrong with the flash chip specification with most of them, and so they forget to be a PocketCHIP after a while.
I do hope that the Raspberry Pi port is also available in 64-bit, because it's a huge step up in performance even on the same hardware. The Raspberry Pi 5 can't even run in 32-bit mode
posted by scruss at 5:38 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]
Oh crap I haven't powered on my Pocket Chip in a few years. I hadn't heard about that problem. At least it was cheap.but I hope it's ok!
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:34 AM on March 24
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:34 AM on March 24
I love these kinds of things! As my work has slowly moved over from straight coding to more management and stuff, I've actually programmed a bit at home for my own amusement. I own Pico-8 but has never made anything with it, maybe the time has come?
posted by Harald74 at 6:42 AM on March 24
posted by Harald74 at 6:42 AM on March 24
I think so! It's only $12 until the end of March and that includes all future versions, which makes it a very good deal to me. Even if you don't make anything, you'll get access to tons of cool games and art over the next few years. (Not a shill, just a fan :)
Also NB: there is a bug in version 0.1.0b that affects loading carts. Rebooting resolves it but then you can only load one cart per reboot. And just as I figured this out and went poking around, a patch cart was released by a community member early this morning! So do this patch_load fix if you are downloading before the next version is released.
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:23 AM on March 24
Also NB: there is a bug in version 0.1.0b that affects loading carts. Rebooting resolves it but then you can only load one cart per reboot. And just as I figured this out and went poking around, a patch cart was released by a community member early this morning! So do this patch_load fix if you are downloading before the next version is released.
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:23 AM on March 24
Most PocketCHIPs have auto-bricked by now.
I’ve lucked out so far, but I know there are tools online you can get to reflash them if they brick. I like to use mine for Pico 8 and it makes a nice portable terminal to telnet into BBSes.
posted by fimbulvetr at 9:49 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]
I’ve lucked out so far, but I know there are tools online you can get to reflash them if they brick. I like to use mine for Pico 8 and it makes a nice portable terminal to telnet into BBSes.
posted by fimbulvetr at 9:49 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]
yesssss
posted by cortex at 12:34 PM on March 24 [2 favorites]
posted by cortex at 12:34 PM on March 24 [2 favorites]
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posted by eruonna at 1:48 PM on March 23