Benimo12 2025-07-05 03:37 (Edited)
This is mostly meant for @Timo but others can chip in too: Hi, sorry for the 6-month hiatus. I have recently begun on my senior thesis for college and its based on a now I assume defunct project called https://pockit.ai (Project pockit). To fully demonstrate the display's functionality, I am planning on replicating a fusion of LowResNX and LowRes on a Pico-powered display. Do you have any advice on how to go about that?
Benimo12 2025-07-05 03:38
The project is written in micropython if that may help and I have been writing my own library to help with the process.
Timo 2025-07-06 21:39
Hmm, not sure what you need. You can check NX‘s source code if that helps.
Benimo12 2025-07-07 05:16
I’ve checked it and it helps out a ton. I’ve decided though not to go with the BASIC route because I don’t think I have enough space to fit all the source code needed so, since I’m using Micropython, I’m trying to make it as high-level as possible through making my own libraries since with those, I can maintain as many features with both LowRes versions as possible without having to write anything in BASIC
Benimo12 2025-07-07 05:19
This decision also has to do with limitations Micropython has, even compared to regular Python as it is a lot more low-level. Thanks anyways.
Mrlegoboy 2025-07-17 03:25
Wait… are you telling me you’re making a real LowRes nx console?
Benimo12 2025-07-21 04:02
Yes and no. Its more just a part of something else entirely but I thought it would be cool to have part of my thesis project work similarly to an NX. While an NX could potentially be reconstructed from it, that is not it's main focus. It's really just because I like how the NX handles bit-graphics, cells, sprites and cell maps and it coincidentally, was the solution to my image-mapping problem where I wanted to create a means of showing images on my Pico's res-touchscreen that was both space and time efficient.
Benimo12 2025-07-21 04:11
While I've decided to no longer go along with using BASIC as the language of interpretation (mostly because it needs an additional layer of abstraction, it would be space-inefficient and I am very lazy) in favor of just using Micropython, I am trying to ensure that with the libraries I'm writing and drivers I'm modifying that the syntax is as close as possible to LowRes's BASIC with some few key adjustments:
1.) I'm going with a different filesystem for palettes, characters and maps where they will be stored on different files rather being part of the same sub-file group. This I presume will make file-referencing a lot easier.
2.) How the palettes, character maps and cell maps work have been (in the case of the cell map, plan to be) slightly changed to use base10 numbers rather than base16 numbers and incorporate whitespace into the file where the whitespace (in its different forms) act as pointers to tell the file interpreters what to do with the numbers. (I noticed that how both our filesystems work were coincidentally mechanically similar already)
Benimo12 2025-07-21 04:15
I also expanded the palette to hold 8 colors rather than 4 and I plan, with GFX editor I'm writing to have > 256 colors as right now, I'm only using the colors I already pre-defined in the driver. I'm also on the fence about sprites having different sizes and the limit I want the sprite size to be although I'm mostly leaning towards sprites having different sizes.
Benimo12 2025-07-21 04:16
I don't think I'll do anything for music yet because this is all for just one microcontroller which is graphics-based so anything music-wise will be for a different segment of the project, completely unrelated to this side of the project.
Benimo12 2025-07-21 04:23
That being said, I have incorporated the vectoral graphics used by the original LowRes, as well as fully incorporating touchscreen functionality, reminiscent of LowResNX as well as its own very specific functions. I do plan however to see about incorporating keyboard and controller support as well as cartridge support (in theory, this one is possible but, through the form of an SD card)