The CPU only gives you a small number of cycles each tick, but it saves them up (to a certain limit), so if you don't waste them, your CPU can run a lot of code at once when you need it. The computer will run a lot faster if you're not constantly wasting CPU cycles. The one thing to note is that you should always use at least one TICK or some TICKS in a loop if you're just waiting for things in the world to change. Still, since the computer is fully virtualized, it won't hurt your world or even cause a slowdown. 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.
RP Control is carefully designed so that you won't screw up your world even if you crash the virtual computer. Note the sophistication of the scheduler built into the 6502 emulation as described in this reply by Eloraam to a question about infinite loops: Less well-known than BASIC, Forth is far more powerful while retaining a tiny footprint and being easy to understand. While it's possible to program the 65EL02 in assembly language, for general use she chose to implement a Forth interpreter. 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. I've developed a knack for 16x16 through lots of practice (RedPower has something like 500 sprites now, and I drew them all), but this was something else entirely. I'm an engineer, this art stuff is all new to me. I must admit I found working on such a large canvas daunting. So once I put down the basic outline and marked out how the speculars fall, I tossed the exemplar and drew everything myself. The exemplar gave me a good map of where the speculars and shadows fall, but it was also a grainy JPEG with a myriad of photographic imperfections, as well as having the wrong aspect ratio. They were so hard that I ended up resorting to tracing the rough contours and illumination from the one good front-on picture of a PDP-11/35 I could find on Google. When I complimented her on the appearance of the front panel, Eloraam described the effort it took: The rocker switches, in particular, are great renditions of those on the front panel of PDP-11/35s and /40s. The front panel recalls the look of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) hardware really well.
Yes, the toggle switches really work! (Click to enlarge.) Her textures, while remaining at Minecraft's low resolution, are very attractive and make RedPower's items pleasant to look at in-game.Ī example is the front panel displayed when you right-click the 65EL02 CPU block: Among other things the computer can control in Minecraft are automated mining machines built with RedPower's newly-introduced Frames, which are movable scaffold blocks used to build moving gantries, booms, and cranes.Įloraam has put an incredible amount of work into RedPower Control and the other parts of Prerelease 5, and it shows. The portion of Eloraam's addon with the computer is known as RedPower Control due to its intended use for industrial process control. Further right a Ribbon Cable connects to an IO Expander interfaced to a Bundled Cable that carries 16 redstone signals. Shown are a CPU with three 8K RAM Modules, a Monitor on the left, and a floppy Disk Drive adjacent on the right. RedPower 2's 65EL02 computer system in Minecraft. Up to 256 devices (just the Monitors, Disk Drives, and IO Expanders thus far) are supported by Redbus over the ribbon cables. The emulated CPU comes with 8K RAM, with up to seven additional 8K RAM Modules installable on Backplanes that must be placed on blocks behind the CPU.Īdditional components are Monitors, floppy Disk Drives, and IO Expanders, all of which may be located at a distance from the CPU as long as they're connected by Ribbon Cable blocks.Ī minimal installation consists of a CPU, Disk Drive, and Monitor.
Somewhat eclipsed by Notch's project is the 6502 emulator now available for Minecraft as part of Prerelease 5 of the mod RedPower 2 by Eloraam.Įloraam 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." Notch's new game 0x10c and its virtual 16-bit computer, the DCPU-16, have made news recently.