Show HN: Bedrock – An 8-bit computing system for running programs anywhere

Summary

Bedrock is a compact and portable 8-bit computer system, designed to last forever. Click here to jump straight to the live demos. Overview Bedrock is a computer system that makes it easy to write useful programs that will last forever. The system is small and quick to learn, with only 32 instructions and 12 devices to remember. Bedrock isn’t a real computer system that you can pick up and hold in your hands. It’s a specification that describes an interface for any kind of computing device, allowing you to write programs that will run on any device without having to worry about the peculiarities of the underlying hardware. Programs written for Bedrock can run on any computer system, so long as a Bedrock emulator has been implemented for that system. The emulator acts as a thin translation layer between the program and the system, and is designed to be easy to implement on any computer, console, or handheld, no matter how old or limited. The core system can be implemented in a few hours, and the 12 standard devices can be implemented and connected as needed. Programs can currently run on Windows, Linux, the web, and the Nintendo DS. See the live demonstrations section at the bottom of this page for examples of the kinds of programs that can run on Bedrock. Tutorials Bedrock: Printing a string A hands-on tutorial that shows how to print a string to the terminal. It assumes no former knowledge about Bedrock, and almost no former knowledge about programming in general. Documentation User manual The user manual is aimed at people who are learning about or writing programs for the Bedrock system. It contains many examples in the form of runnable code snippets. Specification The specification is aimed at people who are implementing the system from scratch. Implementations To write and run a program using Bedrock you’ll need an assembler and an emulator. An assembler is used for converting program source code into a Bedrock program, and an emulator is used for running any Be...