>0 ultrachip @ 2024/07/31 02:48
By "software toys" I mean silly little applications/scripts/whatever that serve no purpose other than to amuse, but don't quite meet the definition of a game. For example, I once wrote a Python script that encoded text as a mosaic of colored squares. Or another time I wrote a non-interactive simulation of a crew of NPCs that explored a fictional ocean and posted their discoveries on Reddit. Just silly, dumb things like that. Does anyone know of any communities dedicated to software like that?
>1 ultrachip @ 2024/08/08 15:14
>>OP After searching I wasn't able to find any, so I went ahead and created my own. If any of y'all are on Reddit feel free to visit r/SoftwareToys
>2 dskully @ 2024/08/18 17:48
i actually love them too, i write some using picotron, ill check yours out.
>3 scarecat @ 2025/05/07 20:34
as ~dskully mentioned picotron i'll say that both picotron and pico-8 have communities dedicated to making little applications and games in an limited environment. It's really fun and easy to pick up, and pico-8 even has a free educational edition
>4 eyayah @ 2025/05/12 15:36
i hadn't yet heard of picotron. will definitely check it out!
>5 anthk @ 2025/05/12 19:55
>>OP Half toys/half serious tools: - Forth+Subleq/Muxleq. Not that 'toy-ish', it can work as a testbed. I'm not the autor but I expanded the forth vocabulary a bit from external tools, such as rational arithmetic, double number scaling operator (m*/) and d* d/ (double mul/div) derived from m*/. - Subleq itself it's a virtual machine/CPU and it just has ONE instruction. The VM has been ported everywhere (and eforth will run on it), there are even TTL based CPU's. So, if you have an AWK/C/Perl interpreter, you can run EForth from HowerJ on top. Muxleq it's the same, but it can multiplex instructions being much faster, really usable on Pentium III machines and up. - Silly gopher client in JimTCL, I'm finishit it. - Improved gem.awk for a Spanish Tilde (texto-plano.xyz). I translated it into Spanish. Dumb, because there's Amfora/Bombadillo for Gemini, but this works in a hurry and it uses a 5% of RAM/CPU. And it has command shortcuts for Spanish capsules and so, so in the end is not as useless. It can pipe files to Unix commands too. - Custom scripts for chafa(1) to show images under an easy way for Links over SSH/Mush. Again, everyone has an smartphone or a proper web client, but this is half toy/half serious: you can rest your hands. - Sierpinski Triangle with Forth: - Audioebooks for news with espeak -p 30 -s 220 -z. Almost useless but it's cool. - Halftone images with ImageMagick, I miss old newspapers. : sier cr 32 0 do 32 0 do i j and if 32 emit else 42 emit then loop cr loop ; sier Output: ******************************** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** * * * * * * * * **** **** **** **** * * * * * * * * ** ** ** ** * * * * ******** ******** * * * * * * * * ** ** ** ** * * * * **** **** * * * * ** ** * * **************** * * * * * * * * ** ** ** ** * * * * **** **** * * * * ** ** * * ******** * * * * ** ** * * **** * * ** * ok ok