Posts on asie's blog

Browsing the web with a WonderSwan in 2023

Sat, 19 Aug 2023 12:20:00 +0100

In the year 1999, Bandai announced the MobileWonderGate - a device which allowed connecting a WonderSwan to the Internet thanks to a collaboration with the mobile network NTT DoCoMo. This was primarily used by a selection games to provide downloadable content, as expected for this type of handheld attachment. … Oh, it also came with a web browser supporting a subset of HTML 3.2, tables, GIF images, reading Japanese websites, a bookmark system, and cookies.

Introducing BootFriend: unofficial custom firmware for WonderSwan Color

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 00:15:00 +0100

For a while now, I’ve been involved in the WonderSwan homebrew scene - for those unfamiliar, it’s a handheld consoles which was moderately successful in Japan but failed to launch outside of it. I got to make a demo or two, I got to contribute towards emulator accuracy, I got to write a homebrew toolchain which… honestly is stuck in development hell due to perfe- It was and continues to be a fun little excursion.

The Newlib Trap: Licenses, Homebrew, and You

Sun, 17 Jul 2022 21:30:00 +0100

Does your homebrew project infringe on anyone’s copyright? You might be quick to respond with “no, of course not”. After all, you’re a good citizen using open-source toolchains (as opposed to leaked SDKs) and open-source libraries (asumming they’re not a stand-in for leaked SDKs). That means you’re doing everything you have to, right? Obligatory note: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Most lawyers would probably flee the moment I said “as opposed to leaked SDKs”… That’s fair, really.

ZZT World Creation Contest '91: Allen Pilgrim and Tom Breton's recollections

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 20:15:00 +0100

When Tim Sweeney released ZZT in 1991, his idea to encourage new ZZT content was to hold a world creation contest. Over two hundred submissions eventually resulted in the releases of the “Best of ZZT” compilation and the “ZZT’s Revenge” collection in 1992. They also provided an initial hiring pool for the then-new game development company Epic MegaGames. The most valuable recently discovered information on the contest has been provided by Beth Daggert, one of the contest winners and an early Epic MegaGames employee.

Before CurseForge (Microblog)

Sun, 14 Nov 2021 11:32:00 +0100

We have a right to play modded Minecraft without corporate interference.

Third party downloads are not worse than AdBlock.

While I’d love to just agree, people have gotten used to the status quo of a small portion of Minecraft modding. Time for a history thread, strap in!

Note: Originally posted as a microblog thread.

The Overwolf API and You: A Primer

Fri, 12 Nov 2021 15:05:00 +0100

While browsing the Internet, I noticed that Overwolf had finally made an in-depth announcement about their planned changes to CurseForge’s API and interoperability with third-party software. While I have largely given up on modding Minecraft, aspects of it remain a topic dear to my heart. As such, here’s a quick personal opinion on some of its aspects.

Note that the article is a bit of a ramble - I’m writing it fresh off studying the conversation surrounding the above-mentioned announcement. Apologies for the lower quality.

Full motion video in ZZT: State of the art

Mon, 09 Nov 2020 20:51:00 +0100

In this article, we’re going to look at the history of creating animated, cinematic experiences in ZZT. Despite the engine’s harsh size limitations - 20 kilobytes per board and about 400 kilobytes per world1 creators have managed to pull off some amazing stunts, especially in the past few years of ZZT’s renaissance. Let’s go! Warning: This article contains spoilers for a few ZZT games - The Crypt and On a Distant Moon.

ZZT Stories: The Reconstruction

Tue, 04 Aug 2020 21:30:00 +0100

When I was riding the waves of IRC as a kid in the mid-00s, I discovered a small community centered around a then-obscure game engine named ZZT. Fifteen years later, I decided to embark on a journey to reconstruct its missing source code. The end result was the Reconstruction of ZZT - a source tree whose build scripts create a ZZT.EXE byte-for-byte identical to the final official release. This article serves as a clarification of the context and a recollection of the methods in which I got there.

BuildCraft History and Design

Fri, 30 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0100

BuildCraft is one of the few ancient Minecraft mods which has made it through almost 4 years of modding up until the present day, as well as m any changes of the maintainer/developer team. In this post, I’d like to briefly discuss the history of it and my design views. Please note that if you want to read up on the recent history of BuildCraft (1.6.4-1.7.10), you might be better off reading my previous BC blog post from December.

Welcome to the new ASCIImator!

Fri, 16 May 2014 00:00:00 +0100

EDIT: If you have issues accessing the site, hard refresh (Shift+F5, Ctrl+F5, Cmd+R, your mileage might vary).

Hello! Today, ASCIImator.net has changed hands. After 9.5 years of being owned by karaboz and brutto, I became the new owner.