Comment by Razengan
9 hours ago
It'd be cool to have a new modern retro system that embraces the spirit of the early "computer consoles" like the Commodore 64 while adding all modern conveniences:
• Everybody has the same system (devs need to target only 1 environment)
• Boot straight into a programming environment
• Limited OUTPUT that enhances creativity without the internal limitations that hinder creativity: Like a limited numbers of colors, but no bitplane crap or having to do sprite multiplexing etc
• Online, ungated app store where anybody can publish, like itch.io
• Reasonable upgradability (not so much as to defeat point #1)
Seems like you’re describing something like Pico-8: https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php
There are also open-source versions of the concept, like TIC-80.
The only thing missing is upgradability.
Software-only fantasy consoles are an interesting concept, covered by a sister comment.
There are also hardware-based efforts, like BoxLambda[0], Agon[1], MEGA65[2], Uzebox[3], F256[4].
0. https://epsilon537.github.io/boxlambda/
1. https://www.thebyteattic.com/p/agon.html
2. https://mega65.org/
3. https://uzebox.org/
4. https://wildbitscomputing.com/