autocratic for the people.

TI-force.

It's a common lament that computers seem to speed up at about the same rate that software slows down. This complaint is most commonly applied to Windows, where it seems to take more power every year to do the same thing (have you seen the new Solitaire?), but in actuality it happens with many popular programs. The efficiency losses are usually due to either higher-overhead programming languages or, perhaps more often, a bad case of featuritis.

This makes it all the more uplifting, then, to see a case of extreme economy and efficiency. And the platform in this case is, of all things, a graphing calculator.

Some guy wrote a Zelda game for the TI-83. Really. Here's a video. It's written entirely in Z80 assembly and, according to the linked interview, currently runs about 25,000 lines. It's a testament to the real power of cheap computing devices when you take the time to actually make them sing. Too bad we don't get a whole lot of that anymore.

posted by avixe @ 8:39 PM