IBNIZ: audiovisual programs with extremely short code

IBNIZ is a virtual machine designed for extremely compact audiovisual programs. Downloads and other info at http://pelulamu.net/ibniz/

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• +programming
• +demoscene
• +glitch
• +minimal
• +forth
• +bytebeat
• +ibniz
• +livecode
• +live
• coding
• +livecoding

[Evi1M4chine]

So this “language” is write-only then, is it? :P

BTW: I can do it even shorter with my special “VM”. Here’s the total code you run in it

“.”

One dot. That’s it.

Because if you can cheat by using a VM, why have it implement a language and not write it directly in the code of the “VM” in the first place??

Yes, using a VM is cheating.

[viznut]

@Evi1M4chine The possibility of hiding useful complexity in the platform is a known problem with VMs and needs to be addressed somehow if custom VMs get more popular on the demoscene. In IBNIZ, I've deliberately chosen the instruction set so that all instructions (apart from "M" which does the context switch) are something you can find in core Forth vocabulary or x86 instruction set.

I don't think the language is any more "write-only" than the likes of C, Perl or Forth. See my blog post :)

[viznut]

@Evi1M4chine Some questions to track down the philosophy: If it is cheating to use a self-built VM, then is it cheating to use 1) an industry-standard VM (Flash, Java)? 2) an Amiga? (a lot of classic demo effects are somewhat emergent from the HW features of Amiga so they're kind of "built-in") 3) a self-built hardware platform (like lft's AVR boards)?

So, where's the core philosophical difference between self-built and non-self-built platforms, or between hardware and software platforms?

[shaurz]

How many bytes is the VM binary?

[viznut]

@shaurz About 25K uncompressed including the editor etc., however it should be possible to implement it in the sub-4K range.

[cappelnord]

Hope that there will be some sourcecode (or at least info on the VM). I will SO port this into my visuals environment! :-D

[viznut]

@cappelnord The first public release will be out within a few days. Full source code will be available.

[rebelpetset]

I also must say it is somewhat disappointing that it is not possible to define custom symbols (Forth "words") in it.

[jtakalai]

Domain-specific language for c64 demos? Awesome idea (: now I sort of wish it would look less like APL... maybe you should be able to construct a macro language on top of that? Actually, writing a program in, say, python that outputs this "multimedia bytecode" could also be a fun project.

[injurytimes]

Some code from me: Sliding-down squarewave remix )~*F

[minousoft]

@Evi1M4chine So, by your logic, using an FPGA would be cheating?

[YRUIM]

is it strange this gives me a headache?

[Dwonis]

I wonder how many slices this thing would take on an FPGA.

[HiAdrian]

Very cool, can't wait to experiment with it.