Text Editor Created In Minecraft 114
jones_supa writes: The redstone mechanics in Minecraft can be pushed surprisingly far to create rather advanced digital circuits. Thanks to a user nicknamed Koala_Steamed, there now exists a text editor inside the game (YouTube demonstration). It comes with a 5 x 10 character matrix in which each character uses a starburst (16-segment) display. There are 7.357 x 10^92 different combinations the screen can show, all of which can be controlled from a single line. The scale of the workings used to make this piece of logic, using only redstone, is dauntingly huge.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
the whole things an editor if you're brave enough (Score:3)
Enderman only steal a limited amount of block types. Coal, ores and paper are not amongst those.
Or so I guess. ;)
the whole things an editor if you're brave enough (Score:1)
They steal gold though, and it seems like gold on black clay would give the best contrast at the game resolution.
Re:the whole things an editor if you're brave enou (Score:4, Insightful)
The really important question is whether or not at the Planck scale one finds that we are all one really, really big version of Minecraft, being played by beings that look strangely like turtles. All the way down.
Another really important question is just how much of the world's creative potential is devoted to creating meta-inventions on top of rulesets intended for something else entirely rather than, say, bringing about world peace, curing cancer, feeding the hungry, or just plain moving out of your mom's basement. Not that I am entirely without sin in this regard myself, but it is a sad commentary on the state of the world (virtual or not) that we appear to live in when solving vast and pointless artificial problems in a virtual reality is more appealing than tackling the real and serious problems that surround us.
rgb
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Another really important question is just how much of the world's creative potential is devoted to creating meta-inventions on top of rulesets intended for something else entirely rather than, say, bringing about world peace, curing cancer, feeding the hungry, or just plain moving out of your mom's basement.
rgb
The same could be said about JavaScript... ;^)
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ROTFL. Ah, shades of mongo.
rgb
So let's work toward world peace. Here. Now. (Score:4, Insightful)
Another really important question is just how much of the world's creative potential is devoted to creating meta-inventions on top of rulesets intended for something else entirely
Or post on Slashdot. Umm... So let's go about changing this right now. To solve the world's problems, we need to find their roots.
rather than, say, bringing about world peace
So long as people speak different languages, worship the creator in different ways, and faraway governments attempt to impose laws that end up creating an environment hostile to a particular group's way of life, there will always be war. How should that be changed?
curing cancer
You can reduce the incidence of Cancer by forbidding penetrative sexual contact during Libra, but I don't see how people will accept that. Besides, two-thirds of malignant tumors are unavoidable [slashdot.org]. How should that be changed?
feeding the hungry
Long-term food insecurity is a distribution problem [cnbc.com], especially when countries use hunger as a weapon against their own people. How should that be changed?
or just plain moving out of your mom's basement.
Why is living with parents considered shameful, especially in an era of telecommuting?
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Thank you for so effectively demonstrating the existential ennui that paralyzes our entire civilization. Of course if you look carefully at your replies and actually think for a moment, the answers to each and every one are obvious and there are a rather large number of talented individuals who demonstrate this every day by their actions.
The tragedy is the many competent persons who would rather build giant virtual word processors or make armor to sell in WoW than to take up arms against the world's sea of
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honestly, building Minecraft engines is as close to doing nothing as it is possible to do and still breathe.
Oh get over yourself. None of it really matters at all anyway. Human interest stuff will generally last a generation or two at most. Eventually the universe will suffer heat death or some other fate resulting in nothing anyone does ever making a difference in a permenant way.
PS I've no idea what your hobbies are, but I suspect they suck.
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Oh, don't worry. This is /. I'm a nerd/geek. I've spent far, far too many hours over the last two weeks playing the Android Icewind Dale remix. And I did my time with the e-cocaine known as minecraft, only quitting when I had built towers from the bottom of the world to its top and realized suddenly that I was bored to tears. Even now I can't get myself motivated to revisit it.
That's how I know that it is doing nothing but skipping sleep.
As for the vanity of the world and the pit of existential despair
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How should that be changed?
Of course if you look carefully at your replies and actually think for a moment, the answers to each and every one are obvious
They happen not to be obvious to me. If this makes me incompetent, please help me become more competent.
The tragedy is the many competent persons who would rather [make or use toys] than to take up arms against the world's sea of trouble and, by opposing, end them.
I must be missing something fundamental. Could you describe these "arms" to me in this context?
Re:the whole things an editor if you're brave enou (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree entirely with the sentiment, but there is a massive psychological difference between virtual problems and real ones.
With virtual problems, the rules are known and consistent, and the only potential barrier to success is the limitations of the user's abilities. If the user can accurately assess their own skill level, they can know if the problem is solvable, and possibly the time frame in which this can be done.
Big, real problems are awash in variables far beyond the control of any one person. They may not be solvable given current restraints. Many of the "best" governments in the world, led by the most educated and intelligent people, and backed with enormous budgets are undercut by the chaos of global economics, damaged by misinformation and false intelligence, aggravated by the stupidity of other actors, and in turn conduct their own activities that damage the prospects of peace, or health and security for all.
I might commit my life to a cure for cancer or world peace, and thus squander the next 60 years away because the world, as a majority, is not ready for those things. The Sudoku puzzle, on the other hand, I can solve before I finish breakfast.
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And the Sudoku puzzle is good for your brain, and hence isn't all that bad for society to the extent that people with healthy logical brains are better than the alternative. Probably true of minecraft as well -- I certainly enjoyed it for a month or three, just as I enjoyed second life more briefly, World of Warcraft in its day, and am currently enjoying the rebirth of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale on my tablet. But at some point all of these things -- even Sudoku -- become a form of e-crack, a means of
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Devoted kids WILL sooner or later cure cancer. With redstone. In minecraft.
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The really important question is whether or not at the Planck scale one finds that we are all one really, really big version of Minecraft, being played by beings that look strangely like turtles. All the way down.
Another really important question is just how much of the world's creative potential is devoted to creating meta-inventions on top of rulesets intended for something else entirely rather than, say, bringing about world peace, curing cancer, feeding the hungry, or just plain moving out of your mom's basement. Not that I am entirely without sin in this regard myself, but it is a sad commentary on the state of the world (virtual or not) that we appear to live in when solving vast and pointless artificial problems in a virtual reality is more appealing than tackling the real and serious problems that surround us.
rgb
The problem with things like feeding the hungry is all of the political opposition you would run into. Since the Industrial Revolution of the late 1800s we've had the capability of feeding, clothing, sheltering, and educating the entire world's population several times over. What we don't have is the political will to do it. Too many ruling elite would have to give up power for it to actually happen. That's the real obstacle.
Most armed conflict is also to the benefit of this ruling elite, who use such p
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Amen. Line by line, actually. Especially your summary sentence. Although I'd take issue with "become" -- it has always been that way. It is arguably "un-becoming" fucked up, but a glacial pace compared to our capabilities and opposed by the MIC sociopaths and organized crime, who are not necessarily disparate groups.
rgb
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In a perfect world everybody would be fixing the world's problems you say!!
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Everybody would at least be trying to be a net positive part of the solution instead of neutral to net negative. As I said elsewhere in the thread, the ideal is probably neither Charles Manson or Mother Teresa, it is probably more like the Boy Scouts -- do a good turn daily and try to be no worse than neutral otherwise. And don't be a butt. Very important that.
rgb
weight-lifting (Score:1)
Another really important question is just how much of the world's creative potential is devoted to creating meta-inventions on top of rulesets intended for something else entirely rather than, say, bringing about world peace, curing cancer, feeding the hungry, or just plain moving out of your mom's basement. Not that I am entirely without sin in this regard myself, but it is a sad commentary on the state of the world (virtual or not) that we appear to live in when solving vast and pointless artificial problems in a virtual reality is more appealing than tackling the real and serious problems that surround us.
Personally, I find that energy devoted to task is nothing like units expended i.e. not at all a zero-sum game. For myself, I can spend a long time working on tough math problems, and indeed feel very exhausted, but then when I turn to something else, like say cleaning up the kitchen, I do very well, in fact I do a better job then I would if I had not been working hard at something else for a while. Also, developing a tolerance to working on something tough translates well into doing (possibly more important
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oblig xkcd
http://xkcd.com/505/ [xkcd.com]
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Brilliant!
The only way you'd ever know is if there is a glitch in The Matrix...
rgb
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I thought almost all these tricks in Minecraft were done using editor mode, not game mode. Thus no creepers to worry about, no mining, etc.
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Why not? Sometimes the best creations are not because of someone thinking a piece of software is useful, but to scratch an itch.
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Everyone needs a hobby.
The argument that anyone should be doing something better with their time is imo terrible, because if widely applied we would all be working towards cancer research or whatever thing society decided was most important. How can you just sit here reading slashdot when you could be out saving lives!
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Maybe it will inspire a gifted youngster to learn digital electronics. Innovation often comes from playtime.
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Re:Cool, but why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously a talented individual, think of that useful software could have been written with the same amount of time and effort.
I've been asked this question all my life.
When I decided I'd like to fly to the moon everyone asked why. "You could have spent your time and effort making a ship to fly to Australia," they said.
The time that I decided I'd like to write a series of novels that spanned generations of characters and several hundred years they said asked why as well. "Your time is better spent writing non-fiction and and historic account of something that really happened."
I remember one time when I decided to ride my bike to the other side of town. My grandfather said "Why? The bus is faster and you'll be less tired."
Sometimes I take a break from work. My co-workers ask me why when work is so rewarding anyway.
The other day I spent a crazy amount of money buying ingredients to make a very tasty meal (well, I thought it was). I was asked why. It provided my body the same energy as something I could have made using much cheaper ingredients.
Related to the above item, many of my friends ask me why I cook my own meals at all. If you look hard enough you can get someone else to cook something kind of similar for about the same cost.
I once decided to make my own analogue clock. I made all the gears and built it from scratch. Took ages. Cost a lot more than an analogue clock I could have purchased (and certainly a lot more than a digital clock).
Sometimes I do crosswords or solve other puzzles.
Even more occasionally I listen to music.
I go bushwalking (I am not sure of the American term -- walking in National Parks along trails?) and camping.
I could go on forever and for ever.
I don't need to do any of these things. I enjoy doing these things. I want to do these things. Most of them serve no practical purpose at all, apart from making me happy. That's not entirely true, though. If I set myself a goal that has no practical or useful purpose and achieve it I do get a reward. I even get a reward if I fail.
There is no purpose to life apart from being happy (IMO). And if doing something meaningless makes you happy then... then, well it's not meaningless is it?
Re:Cool, but why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I meant to add...
When I am laying on my death bed and someone says "you did all these useless things -- you could have directed your talent towards really useful stuff and made lots of money", I will honestly be able to say "They were not useless; they made me happy. And that is what gave my life meaning."
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When I am laying on my death bed and someone says "you did all these useless things -- you could have directed your talent towards really useful stuff and made lots of money", I will honestly be able to say "They were not useless; they made me happy. And that is what gave my life meaning."
That is indeed the most important and hope I will be able to say the same (though probalbly I'll have regrets). Everyone should do as they please, and usefullness in itself is not a good measure of activity. That being said, I somewhat understand the original poster who was modded troll: why not do something -possibly equally useless- in the real world instead of this minecraft thing? Instead of simulating the Tour de France on a home-trainer, why not go out and cycle? Both are equally useful or useless, b
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Thanks for the response. Well put. I was not meaning to belittle what was accomplished, but just as to the why. If it brings great joy to that individual, AWESOME, keep on!
He made an awesome minecraft thing instead of curing cancer likely for the same reason we are posting to slashdot instead of curing cancer :P
I just wish I possessed that same talent as to where I could use it for other purposes.
Don't we all.
I too wish I had the knowledge, talent, and energy to do something world changing and/or useful to many - but alas I am not as learned, intelligent, or capable of doing so (and at my age it's mostly all down hill from here)
And although I have the knowledge to build an ACU and simple CPU from the gate level up, as well as love minecraft as much as the next
Most important question of all (Score:5, Funny)
does it support vi or emacs commands?
Re:Most important question of all (Score:5, Funny)
On behalf of Systems Administrators everywhere; I will personally bitch slap the first user that tries to tell me that their preferred emacs interpreter is Minecraft.
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Re:Most important question of all (Score:5, Funny)
I personally use Emacs as my preferred Minecraft interpreter.
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Um... no you didn't. :)
Re:Most important question of all (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you infringe copyright with redstone? (Score:4, Informative)
given that you can already play Tetris in Emacs
How long will M-x tetris last given the ruling in Tetris v. Xio [slashdot.org] and Mr. Pajitnov's admitted belief that free software deserves not to exist [slashdot.org]?
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After a decade of only knowing Nano/pico I'm picking up Vi because I'm too lazy to install it on FreeBSD.
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Boot into single-user mode and soak up the goodness of ed, the only available text editor.
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vi works just fine in single user, you just need to set a few variables first.
Re:Most important question of all (Score:4, Funny)
You underestimate my laziness.
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It's not even available unless you can mount /usr.
Can Minecraft make a good annoying VI beep? (Score:3)
Can Minecraft make a good annoying VI beep? If so you could simulate the two to four VI using jerks in the computer lab. Beep Boop... Beep Boob....
Emacs will always be my favorite operating system.
Vaguely Neuromancer-esque (Score:2)
Seeing an 8-bit binary executing in simulated 3D brings to mind the experience of being jacked into William Gibson's idea of cyberspace.
Forget the iPhone 6, I have an Ono-Sendai Cyberspace 7.
Dude... (Score:1)
...use your powers for GOOD.
Next thing you know (Score:5, Funny)
Next thing you know, Minecraft will be self-hosting. Lord help us, the singularity [wikipedia.org] awakes!
Re:Next thing you know (Score:5, Informative)
It's getting there [youtube.com].
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And to think I had people oohing and aahing because I installed a functioning scoreboard in someone's Spleef arena, or a binary counter that would tell you how many people had entered and left a given space (though it could be fooled if people pushed through together), or a combination lock for a secured area (with user-configurable combinations). I understand redstone, even in its more recent, more analog-like form. Generating, detecting, and sorting pulses is not hard. Logic gates are not hard. Latches an
Re:This isn't pure minecraft (Score:5, Insightful)
He serializes the data and sends it over a single redstone line... just like you would do in a real computer.
Re:This isn't pure minecraft (Score:5, Insightful)
He serializes the data and sends it over a single redstone line... just like you would do in a real computer.
It's actually rather interesting. I think firstly the keyboard generates serial pulses directly, with the pulses encoded with redstone repeaters. This is a very nice solution to keyboard decoding. Secondly, minecraft is a lot slower than the real world so high speed problems crop up early. Routing 8 parallel wires would be a real pain and you'd start to get clock skew problems if you weren't really careful about keeping the path lengths the same.
Just because you can do a thing... (Score:3)
With apologies to Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) this is a perfect example of people being "...so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should. [imdb.com]"
I'm all for geeky, harmless, just-because-I-can projects for entertainment but... wow.
I've always been glad that Minecraft exists (Score:2)
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He's building things like cruise ships and I'm playing the actual game getting creeped out by the zombies and darkness.
Building cruise ships in MC is disappointing because you can't sail them. I have encountered one site that has a space simulation where you build ships and fly them around, but it's fairly horrible. MC is actually a horribly pathetic engine. There's lots of clones which are technically superior, but none of them are more fun for lack of polish. Sadly, the only things anything like it which are dramatically better are space sims. The best one is probably space engineers, I was playing another one too but I c
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... jeb is disappointed in you
Where's a serious version? (Score:1)
Has anyone been following this kind of thing? I keep my eye on it. I saw the first cpu which the author said he used "the elements of computing systems" http://www.nand2tetris.org/ which I quickly bought and learned a lot more than I did in computer organization 1 at college.
Then I saw people working on ram and displays...
Now this whole text editor.
From what little I know, most hardware construction is done using vhdl and verilog. Why isn't there a fully 3d graphical builder for serious design? I think
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Because they have their own tools for layout, which, for them, is pretty much placing rectangles in a bigger rectangle. They use VHDL and Verilog because they work way better than a graphical layout for anything but a trivial digital circuit.
So... (Score:2)
How long before EMACS is running on Minecraft Redstone?
Great (Score:2)
So my kid can do homework on his xbox now?
But will it work as a smartwatch? (Score:2)
Can i strap my smartphone to my wrist, and, have the LCD readout in minecraft show the time?
Minecraftception (Score:1)
this text editor... (Score:1)
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Oh no random user doesn't care about cool nerdy stuff. Now please hand in your nerd card at the door on the way out.