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Games Technology

Minecraft Mod Adds Emulated 6502 Processor 96

New submitter Direwolf20 writes "The Red Power 2 mod for Minecraft has recently been updated, and it adds a fully emulated 6502 processor that can be programmed in assembly, but comes with a Forth interpreter. From the article: 'Eloraam calls it the 65EL02, because "it supports all the 6502, 65C02, and part of the 65C816 instruction set" as well as "a set of completely new instructions and two addressing modes. Since the 65EL02 is an 8-bit CPU, Eloraam didn't have as many options for programming environments as we have on today's 64-bit computers. While it's possible to program the 65EL02 in assembly language, for general use she chose to implement a Forth interpreter. Further technical information about RedPower Control's 65EL02 is available on Eloraam's blog RP Control Internals, and on the RedPower wiki's page for Red Power Control.' (Fair disclosure: The video linked in the article is mine.)"
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Minecraft Mod Adds Emulated 6502 Processor

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @05:43PM (#40093871)

    Can it run Doom?

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @05:45PM (#40093901)

    So interesting AND newsworthy.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @05:47PM (#40093929)

    Eloraam is a chick?

  • Clock Rate? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Narcocide ( 102829 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @05:50PM (#40093971) Homepage

    So what type of Mhz can you get out of this thing? Is it feasible on modern hardware for it to run at a clock rate equal to or higher than say, the stock speed of a Commodore 64? And what about I/O interfaces like audio, video and joysticks? How far can this really be taken?

    • by BeerCat ( 685972 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:12PM (#40094215) Homepage

      Since the C-64 (and PET, Apple ][ and others) had 6502 running at 1MHz, then that shouldn't be too hard to do, even allowing for the emulation running inside a game environment

      • by 0123456 ( 636235 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:45PM (#40094581)

        I remember playing games on a Sinclair Spectrum emulator running in a PC emulator on a Sun laptop which probably had a 40MHz CPU, so a 1MHz 6502 on a 3GHz x86 should be trivial even with a ton of overheads in a game.

        • by Narcocide ( 102829 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @07:08PM (#40094803) Homepage

          Oh, I just watched a little of the video and realized this isn't emulated using minecraft built-in materials and physics, its just a fancy plugin that lets you make computers in minecraft. Very cool, but not as cool as I originally imagined.

          • by Tarlus ( 1000874 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @07:18PM (#40094881)

            Same here. Being a mod, it's basically just using Minecraft as the GUI for its virtual operations...

          • Re:Clock Rate? (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Pseudonym ( 62607 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @11:50PM (#40096635)

            I've toyed with building the 6502 in redstone logic. If you know anything about the internals of the 6502, it actually lends itself to emulation better than, say, the Z80, since it doesn't use microcode and has a data path which is simply laid-out geometrically. Plus, there are quirks in the 6502's design which mean that the delay in getting a slow clock signal around the device wouldn't be a problem in practice.

            The complication is that the 6502 has two logical internal busses (the data bus and the secondary bus) which are connected by a set of bypass MOSFETs which are bidirectional: they can pass data in either direction. That's okay when you're realising the 6502 in analogue electronics (which is what transistors are, after all), but it makes it difficult in digital electronics. At the very least, you'd need to separate the one control signal into two (one for each direction). It's a bit of a mess.

        • by DamonHD ( 794830 ) <d@hd.org> on Thursday May 24, 2012 @02:02AM (#40097157) Homepage

          Oh yes, you from Edinburgh Uni too? In fact, we had to slow ours down to match the screen refresh rate.

          And I suspect that the SPARC was 25MHz and the C compiler not especially good.

          Rgds

          Damon

    • by Mercano ( 826132 ) <.mercano. .at. .gmail.com.> on Thursday May 24, 2012 @12:49PM (#40100813)
      It's supposed to run 1000 instructions per Minecraft tick, which is 1/20th of a second. [wikispaces.com] Note that that's instructions, which on a traditional 6502 can take multiple clock cycles.
    • by Mal-2 ( 675116 ) on Thursday May 24, 2012 @01:40PM (#40101353) Homepage Journal

      MHz? Try just plain Hz. A "tick" (the minimum unit in redstone circuitry) is 100 ms. If you set up a circuit to run on both the rising and falling edges of the clock, you get a whopping 10 Hz.

      That's vanilla Minecraft, it appears the mod may double the speed. It also appears that the 6502 emulator can run multiple operations per clock, but you're still talking about something a couple orders of magnitude slower than the original 6502 in operation. I don't use any of these mods since I'm almost exclusively a Multiplayer player (which means such mods have to be server-side) but have designed plenty of redstone circuits in the vanilla game. Even something as simple as a binary counter still has significant latency problems -- my 5-bit counter would take up to three or four seconds for all bits to stabilize after it was incremented, and in a worst-case scenario, a five-second reset signal was required to flip all bits to zero (otherwise the low bits flipping to zero after the high bits had already cleared could cause the high bits to flip again). Redstone is S-L-O-W.

  • by QBasicer ( 781745 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @05:59PM (#40094049) Homepage Journal
    I watch the posters videos, they're pretty cool. If you're into minecraft, especially the mods, check him out. That being said, I'm pretty excited for this. I'm looking forward to seeing people's creations from this.
    • by Deus.1.01 ( 946808 ) on Thursday May 24, 2012 @02:45AM (#40097291) Journal

      And if you either wasn't interested/got bored of minecraft and the vids are tickling your fancy.
      And then got dissuaded by having to hunt down individual packages and modify the jars with several frameworks(its not hard but it can be tedious as hell).

      I suggest you spoil yourself with some accessibility and head over to http://technicpack.net/ [technicpack.net] and grab a launcher.

      Technicpack was originally created by some Goons just wanting to a create modpack with all the more technical mods, already configured and simple to install.
      Was suppose to be an internal gig, but got spread around and gained a shitload of popularity after it got promoted on a webcast called Yogbox...and went from being hosted on a SA thread, to having its own webpage and package manager.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:00PM (#40094067)

    Has anyone figured out how to install this mod? Directions on the site don't exist.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:00PM (#40094069)

    Because FUCK Redstone, seriously, it is awful. It is so half-assed and broken most of the time.
    This mod fixes everything wrong with it as well as integrating redstone in to the world better in general.

    I just hope mods will have full control of block behaviour as well as the ability to create blocks of various sizes and effects.
    If they do, this game is just about to be reborn.
    Spout, while nice, just isn't there.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:04PM (#40094119)

    Minecraft is essentially a level editor without a game to edit. Except instead using current gen game engines to recreate old mario levels, they're using it to simulate old technology.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:05PM (#40094135)

    Does anyone really care ?? Know what time ??

    lda $ff

    VIC chip rulez !! in 1981 !!

  • by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:14PM (#40094229) Journal
    My impression of the metagame that is Minecraft is that doing things the hard and/or rube-goldberg way is part of the charm. There is some reason why people are trying to build ALUs in crap redstone logic rather than just alt-tabbing to the logic circuit simulator of their choice(or a VM, or an emulator of some popular retro architecture).

    Given that, at what point do mods that improve minecraft's program-ability go too far and turn it from a perverse simulation game of enormous popularity into a really dreadful IDE?
    • by toygeek ( 473120 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:42PM (#40094551) Journal

      It got my son interested in programming. Not this mod, but another. He actually programmed a pong game on his own over the course of a week using lua in a minecraft mod that has a computer that runs lua.

      • by sirsnork ( 530512 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @08:26PM (#40095371)

        Since the only mod I know of that uses LUA and has programming, it very likely _is_ the same mod. RedPower2. This is just the newest version with a bigger "computer"

      • by simoncoles ( 31429 ) * on Thursday May 24, 2012 @10:27AM (#40099487) Homepage

        My son is the same, he's 11 and wanting to create Minecraft Mods has caused him to:
          - Learn Java (he had a few brief experiences with Processing but now he's reading the Nutshell books)
          - Decompile Minecraft
          - Find and follow instructions on how to do all this (Web and YouTube it seems)
          - Write his own mods

        He's currently at the stage where he's letting his brother have his mods, and we're starting to talk to him about the implications of distribution (support, licensing etc.).

        I'm doing very little except providing the right tools at the right time (IntelliJ has been excellent for navigating the code base).

        Very impressed with Minecraft and how much he's been motivated to learn. I had tried to teach him some programming before but never really got anywhere, now he's so deep into aspects of Java that I can't really help him... and I've not had to utter a single word of encouragement or assistance.

        Minecraft feels like it is the BBC Model B of his generation.

    • by History's Coming To ( 1059484 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:49PM (#40094617) Journal
      I think a large part of it is the "because I can" factor. People often have some weird sideline projects on the go - I've hunted for the first three books in pi (by ISBN) and written a directed evolution program which is building a picture of Charles Darwin from random ellipses. Other people built computers in a game running on a computer just for the hell of it. No, it's never going to be the best 6502 emulator, the point is it's the best emulator written in Minecraft. Which is cool, obviously.

      I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with 0x10^c, Notch's new game, which has an inbuilt and fully emulated 16 bit for each player. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a new ultra-low-power OS come out of it.
      • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @11:13PM (#40096453)

        What are the odds that someone will make a virus for that emulated 16 bit computer?

      • Well, there is more to it then that you see(though there is no denying the modders motivation and joys of hack'n'show)...Red Power started out with logic gate blocks and bundled signal cables.
        They provided functionality for the player, not just as a gimmick.

        Same applies for this mini computer, I belive part of the incentive was to add something bit more versatile and compact then hardwired circuts and logic blocks.

        She released a frame-block, the idea is that you design a machine using whatever components you see fit(dohickies from her mod or from other mods) using the frames as a chassis, a motor block(s) can then translate the entire structure on block at a time when activated.(yes it supports recursion)

        With the minicomputer as a microprocessor, you essentially got robotics in minecraft.

        I have hopes that this will recreate the "look what i can do with my C64" era, kids playing multiplayer lego, and then suddenly bit by bit move from simple logic operations to assembly because they want to create more and more cool and complex stuff.

    • by bmo ( 77928 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @07:07PM (#40094789)

      Given that, at what point do mods that improve minecraft's program-ability go too far and turn it from a perverse simulation game of enormous popularity into a really dreadful IDE?

      When someone abandons cool things like forth and tries to implement Visual Basic.

      --
      BMO

    • by Charliemopps ( 1157495 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @07:12PM (#40094847)
      Because the environment "feels" real. You can run around and see the circuit pathways and actually visually understand how the processor works... as apposed to having some abstract flowchart or diagram.
    • Given that, at what point do mods that improve minecraft's program-ability go too far and turn it from a perverse simulation game of enormous popularity into a really dreadful IDE?

      Compare emacs to hurd and you'll see the lengths people go to to avoid doing something that looks like actual work.

    • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday May 24, 2012 @12:27AM (#40096775)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Minecraft as a game...pretty much sucks...the survival aspect did add to it...and quite recently Notch added the final boss, which gave you an overall goal to reach.

        But it felt kinda tacked on, since building palaces don't really help you much in that goal when you could just build an bunker with much less effort, not that there isnt alot of things you must construct items, transportation, etc to help gather resources and being systematic about it certainly gives credence to free form building as a challenge.

        But its the ingenuity and complexity to build shit that makes it fun and with mods its been transformed from Duplo to Lego Mindstorm.

        Though I leaning towards the notion that the engineering challenges you set yourself, classify this directionless sandbox enviroment as a game. But specific game design whether from Vanilla or mods is mostly pointless, you don't use one mod like how counter strike was for Half-Life.

        Its several mods at a time which adds shit ton of variation and possibilities by combining them.

        That end-boss can go fuck himself, I'm building a automated cooling system for my Nuclear reactor.

        • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday May 24, 2012 @05:04AM (#40097869)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • But just because YOU think it sucks doesn't mean other people feel the same. look at the Sims, i have NO fucking clue why but women just love that damned thing and funnily enough Age of Empires I of all games. My former boss showed me how you could bring in the females just by putting AoE I on the boxes in the window but when i watched them play...Did you know many women do NOT play that game like a guy does? i saw many build a big wall around their place and if any bad guys attacked they would just use priests to turn the bad guys on each other and then would just spend their time building stuff.

            So maybe Minecraft is like that, who gives a shit about playing it the 'right" way when there are better things to do. I know I have a game (Just Cause II) where i never even fuck with the missions because i'm too busy doing crazy shit and blowing stuff up to care. I mean I'm using the grapple to tie the biker cops chasing me to trees like jedi and jumping out of flaming choppers and hijacking planes by riding them like a bronco, why would i care about your stupid mission?

            In the end what matters is you are having FUN with a capital F, which sadly so damned many games seem to forget. Like Yahtzee at Zero punctuation said "its a sightseeing tour" where they take you from one set piece to another being led by the nose, fuck that. So I give the Minecraft guys credit (along with some of the other great indies like Torchlight series and Grimlock) because they remember that at the end of the day it doesn't matter what the "rules' or "goals" are, what matters is "Are You having FUN?" and from all the stuff being cooked up in MC I'd say that answer is a giant FUCK YES!

            This ISNT a subjective thing...if a game does not have coherent, rules, obstacles and goals its probably going to be lacking...if it lacks any of these aspects its not a game at ALL.

            Sims is a spin of of Sim City... although the scale is much lower and not as challenging, in the bare essence the same concept. Organize/build/budget a city, organize/build/budget your household.

            There is nothing peculiar about your AoE example, its a strategy game...and the game is to devise your own strategy...if focusing on priests and walls works...it works! Its a risk if the enemy breaches the wall and reaches the defencelss priests...but its still within the scope of the game.

            Now that said I'm defending Minecraft, not for its gameplay but for the fact that its more or less a platform, for modding and emergent gameplay.

            That said...for most other computer games in the genres i care about...I CARE about the being provided a challenge...because that IS fun, its why games ARE FUN, game design is the art of providing play through interaction and stimulation. That does not exclude giving the player a wide range of options, but absolute freedom is pointless without limitations.

            If you are annoyed that some people thinks games are objectively shit, then you should experience the smoldering rage of people who have had a decade with the one disappointing let down after another.

            And yes, I am an angry cunt...

          • by jythie ( 914043 ) on Thursday May 24, 2012 @10:01AM (#40099247)
            Thing is, as a "game" minecraft does suck, as does The Sims. Both have had game-like elements tacked on to them but at their core they are not really games.

            Keep in mind, saying something isn't a 'game' doesn't mean it is not fun or is a bad project, it simply states that a particular label doesn't apply well to it. Will Wright did a good job of describing the category of 'toys' or simulations rather then 'games'... all go under the umbrella of 'fun' and can be awesome, but what they mechanically are is a bit different.
          • > i have NO fucking clue why but women just love that damned thing and funnily enough Age of Empires I of all games

            Generally,
            Men love to Destroying. i.e. "Fuck it, or Fuck it up" (which is why First Person Shooters sell so well)
            Women love Creating and Relationships (which is why The Sims has so many women playing)

            It's not rocket science - to study game design is to study psychology, Yin / Yang, etc.

    • by jythie ( 914043 ) on Thursday May 24, 2012 @09:55AM (#40099197)
      *nods* that is actually my though here. RP5 has always had logic blocks that condense large redstone devices into single block, but I feel that including a full virtual machine to control in-game devices goes a bit far. Granted, like any mod, I can just not use it of course ^_^ though sometimes I worry that RP is slowly eating other mods. It is often coupled with things like BuildCraft or IndustrialCraft because of its useful logic components, but she seems to be trying to replace the functionality in those with her own duplicate solutions.

      Though I wonder how much of the motivation for the VM was to make frames practicle. She has voiced displeasure for BuildCraft and Railcraft's way of having complex 'magic' blocks, but duplicating that functionliaty with frames requires a lot more logic then is often practicle.... so the VM fills that gap by adding its own magic back in.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:14PM (#40094233)

    Asperger's is one hell of a drug..

  • by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:16PM (#40094249) Homepage Journal

    When they drop the Lego blocks and start letting you play with things at a molecular level, give me a call. Until then. *yawn*

    • That would be kind of neat actually... have a simplified physics model based solely on gravitational attraction of proton, electron and neutron blocks, each with their relative mass. Based on that, you could build up algorithms for elements, cellular structures, etc. and keep most of the popular ones available. Then you'll get the really focused people building RNA etc. and attampting to build real-world models to see how the physics need to be tweaked to replicate real-world interactions.

      Then we can get a little microbial Mario jumping on real mushroom fibers!

      • by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:55PM (#40094683) Homepage Journal

        Well, i was also to be realistic.

        Modeling at an atomic level is a bit much to expect with current hardware, but common molecules are large enough and easy enough to simulate that it should be possible.

        Or at the least abstract out materials, like 'wood', 'steel', etc., and let you build that at a near-molecular level. Using Lego like blocks is rather limiting.

        • by neonKow ( 1239288 ) on Thursday May 24, 2012 @09:55AM (#40099187) Journal

          I do no think you comprehend the difference in scale between the molecular level and anything remotely recognizable or interesting to us. If your basic water molecule is 275 pm, and anything complex enough to be recognizable as "wood" would be something like 0.1 mm, you'd need something like 3 million building blocks. In addition, you're asking for many more degrees of freedom for position/angle of your basic building blocks as well as interactions between a much greater number of blocks. Here is something that could give you a better sense of how small things are:

          http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/ [utah.edu]

          Even if all of this were possible to simulate on our dinky little home computers, the time and effort it would take to actually build anything interesting would be far too much for almost every body.

          • Even if all of this were possible to simulate on our dinky little home computers, the time and effort it would take to actually build anything interesting would be far too much for almost every body.

            The whole idea is that it only has to be done once, and only one assembler algorithm has to be produced. You wouldn't store a literal representation of the molecule and resulting substances, only a much lighter-weight symbolic representation, as is done with bmpmapping currently on advanced videogames.

            And as I implied in my original post, you'd definitely not be able to get much more advanced than a single celled object (which, as you point out, is plenty advanced already). Creating an entire block of wood, atom by atom or molecule by molecule would run into significant limits, not the least of which would be that you'd need at least one atom on the storage medium to represent every atom or molecule in the object being built.

          • by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Thursday May 24, 2012 @12:52PM (#40100855) Homepage Journal

            No i fully comprehend it, and until we reach that point things such as Minecraft are of no trust to me.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @08:39PM (#40095471)

        What you want sounds like the kind of simulations already done in projects like Folding@home. The GROMACS core is GPL, so you can check it. I may be wrong, but I don't think it's usual to simulate gravity for something small like individual atoms and molecules, gravity is too weak compared to other relevant forces when you're trying to simulate something of this scale.

        You may also want to take a look at Foldit, it's proprietary freeware, but you may also be interested. It's a "gamification" approach to crowdsourcing, in this case, applied to protein folding.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:16PM (#40094259)

    So, how long will it be before someone implements minecraft IN minecraft?

  • Apropos... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:18PM (#40094275) Journal
    Since we are talking about implementing 6502s in questionably efficient ways, it seems like a good time to plug http://visual6502.org/ [visual6502.org]. Efficient? No. Logic-accurate emulation of a 6502 implemented in javascript based entirely on photographs of a decapped 6502 die? Fuck Yeah.
  • by hydrofix ( 1253498 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:24PM (#40094365)

    So the guy wrote an emulator of the 6502 processor and various perihipals as a native-code plugin for the game. Technically, it does not seem so special, as various 6502 emulators have been written before; they just usually have a more usable GUI than operating them from within a 3D game.

    I would be much more impressed if they actually implemented a general purpose computer by only using readily-available in-game building blocks and mechanics without code extensions to the game engine. This has been done for Conway's Game of Life and a Turing Machine [rendell-attic.org] before.

  • by snikulin ( 889460 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:25PM (#40094383)

    Has Arnie's code been open sourced yet?
    I woul to run it in this emulator.

  • Up or down? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by History's Coming To ( 1059484 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:39PM (#40094521) Journal
    There's an interesting school of thought which says that advanced forms of life will eventually create countless virtual worlds for fun or research, and asks the question "what are the odds that we're in an 'original' reality?". (See Nick Bostrom, Oxford University [simulation-argument.com], he's a philosopher rather than a computational scientist or theoretical cosmologist, but they all seem to be nudging each other these days.

    With that in mind, I found the following quote from the creator of this processor amusing:

    Infinite loops are fine. RP Control is carefully designed so that you won't screw up your world even if you crash the virtual computer. It's actually not especially hard to crash the virtual computer, since the whole OS is loaded into its RAM and you can easily write to that RAM. Still, since the computer is fully virtualized, it won't hurt your world or even cause a slowdown.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24, 2012 @12:25AM (#40096769)

      Nick is cool. Totally separate from that though, he's also logical.

      The odds that we're in an 'original' reality do seem to be close to zero. They drop further into insignificance every time that we find a new slot for life and a new causal agency promoting the emergence of intelligence.

      The more interesting question in this area is whether lawyers are deliberately introduced as a random illogical agent of mutation, It's hard to find a purpose for them otherwise.

      If so, does "BOISE" actually stand for "Buggered Offensive Irrational Sophistic Ego", or would that be attributing a modicum of (warped) intelligence to where there is only stinking putrefaction?

    • by lexman098 ( 1983842 ) on Thursday May 31, 2012 @07:56PM (#40174559)

      See Descartes.

      I could see a simulation controlling my physical actions or stimuli, but the chance that a conscience thought as we know it is so predictable that you could actually stimulate me in the right way to get me to think exactly what you want is pretty far fetched.

  • I'm in for 2! (Score:1, Insightful)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:39PM (#40094531) Journal

    Minecraft Mod Adds Emulated 6502 Processor

    Nothing says "fun in gaming" like a 6502 processor emulator. When I'm sitting down to play games, I often find myself thinking, "God, I wish I could do some assembly-language programming in this game". I don't think there's any question that was the biggest weakness of Call of Duty 4, Modern Warfare 3: Black Ops - there were no emulated 8-bit processors.

    And there are actually some out there who don't understand why computer geeks are sometimes the butt of jokes.

    • Re:I'm in for 2! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by suomynonAyletamitlU ( 1618513 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @08:18PM (#40095311)

      Yes, programmers shouldn't program in their off time, just like artists shouldn't draw and singers shouldn't sing. Which, unfortunately, a lot of people believe.

      "What are you doing?" parents and peers always say. "You're wasting your life." And they keep doing it because they want to.

      I say screw people like you, and more power to people like them.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24, 2012 @02:03AM (#40097161)

        It’s because those parents' and peers jobs have nothing to do with what they really love, and so they see it as a waste of time to do it in private.
        And they think that everybody else failed at life just as much.

      • by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Thursday May 24, 2012 @01:58PM (#40101569) Journal

        I say screw people like you, and more power to people like them.

        Jeez, lighten up, Francis. I love the idea of someone writing assembly language programs with a bunch of blocks in Minecraft. It's one of the reasons why I really appreciate the Slashdot community. I would much rather a gamer create logic gates with blocks than rape and kill ho's with his psychopath RPG character and get points for it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having little in-jokes in a game. Bach wrote a piece of music that can be played backwards and forwards and upside-down. To the average music listener, it doesn't mean squat, but to a musician, it's very cool.

        I say screw people like you, and more power to people like them.

        People "like them" or people "like you"? Where is all this hostility coming from? Don't be so defensive. Just because someone is laughing at you does not mean they don't like you. Enlightenment is not "standing up for yourself" it's "not feeling the need to stand up for yourself".

        You've got to admit, it's just a little bit funny that a game developer created a fully-emulated 8-bit processor in his game.

    • by tepples ( 727027 ) <tepples.gmail@com> on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @08:46PM (#40095531) Homepage Journal
      There's an emulated 6502 in Animal Crossing for the GameCube. It's used to run NES games obtained from Tom Nook and Crazy Redd.
  • by WrecklessSandwich ( 1000139 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @06:54PM (#40094675)
    ...because the only logical conclusion from there is Minecraftduino.
  • What's inside? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @07:02PM (#40094753) Journal

    What's the emulated hardware organization like? The 6502 didn't actually have designated input or output instructions, so as I recall, a programmer had to read or write to specific memory locations that were hardware mapped to various devices, especially peripheral devices.

    Discounting the memory mapped IO locations, how much RAM does the emulated system have to play with? What sort of firmware is loaded into the emulated ROM?

    • by alannon ( 54117 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @09:52PM (#40095941)
      If you watch the video, you'll see the answers to each of these questions in detail.
    • by Mercano ( 826132 ) <.mercano. .at. .gmail.com.> on Thursday May 24, 2012 @01:38PM (#40101339)
      8KB in the base computer block with up to seven 8KB memory expansion blocks behind it. There are peripherals that do in fact connect via memory windows; Eloraam has implemented a custom MMU instruction to map in whatever you've connected with RedBus wire. Currently, there are only three of them, though: the disk drive, the terminal, and the IOX box, which lets you interface with redstone signals. I think you can also connect multiple CPUs up over Red Bus; you just have to give them different bus IDs. Bus IDs are 8 bits long, so if you wanted to, you COULD build a Beowulf cluster.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @07:48PM (#40095115)

    this is the first thing i've ever read about minecraft that i actually understood... i know what a 6502 is.. i can (with a little refresher.. after all, it has been a couple decades) even write assembly for it..

    but for the life of me, i still don't know what the fuck minecraft is or why it is remotely relevant to anything.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @08:56PM (#40095617)

    So does this mean all old Apple code will run too?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_Plus

    JJ

  • by biodata ( 1981610 ) on Thursday May 24, 2012 @03:21AM (#40097479)
    We heard you like computers so we put a computer in your computer
    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24, 2012 @10:26AM (#40099477)

      Nah, Minecraft already ran in a computer in your computer. This puts a computer in *that* computer. That's right, we put a computer in the computer in your computer!

      (God forbid you run Minecraft on a VMWare instance!!!)

  • by silentpinewaves ( 2646545 ) on Thursday May 24, 2012 @11:22AM (#40100043)
    If anyone wants to compile stuff for it i'd look into cc65, just started using that to compile c code down to my Apple IIe, works like a charm :) Not sure if you can run any app/disk image on Minecraft's processor, but its worth looking into.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @05:08AM (#40140289)

    This is a sshare page for everyone but I am looking and seeing many worhless comments hare. So I recomment you a page its http://www.duckgame.net

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