Porting micro-Max to a small teaching language

[octogonz]

Hi hgm,

This is my first post here. I couldn't find another way to contact you, so I hope a public message is acceptable.

I'm Pete Gonzalez ("octogonz" on GitHub). I built Hybrix, a commercial educational 32-bit computer that runs in a web browser. It has a custom CPU with its own assembly language, a small low-level programming language with a garbage collector, and hardware comparable to Sega Genesis. The idea is that a student can understand the whole system down to individual bytes, the way you could with an early home computer, while still being able to make programs you can be proud of.

I have an idea to rewrite micro-Max in the Hybrix language, and then add a graphical frontend with sprites for the pieces and a Sargon-style board. It will be a free playable ROM as well as a coding tutorial for students. Using micro-Max would allow the tutorial to focus on coding, while pointing readers to your docs for understanding the chess algorithm.

What do you think of this idea? Would you want to be credited? Would you be interested to code the algorithm yourself? (The language is small enough to learn in an afternoon, and I could handle the graphical part.)

Thanks for making micro-Max and documenting it so well!

[hgm]

Well, I am always interested in CPU architecture and machine language. And I have certainly no objection against you using micro-Max. I cannot say much more without knowing some details of this Hybrix virtual machine.

[octogonz]

The programming language's framework is open source on GitLab. It's an easy way to see what real Hybrix source code looks like:

https://gitlab.com/writenrun/hybrix-framework/

These docs give an idea of how good the CPU is for chess playing:
- CPU/GPU timing
- Memory segments
- Chombit CPU overview

The framework includes a simple text console. Here's a mockup of what the text mode micro-Max could look like:


I'm thinking the GUI version might look something like this (apologize for the integer rounding errors in this mockup):

[octogonz]

(BTW I'm in Amsterdam today for the JSNation conference. If you are interested in chatting about this project in person, let me know! talkchess@octogonz.com)

[hgm]

Unfortunately I will be in Zeist today, and be back only by 20:30, so this doesn't seem really feasible.

[octogonz]

No problem, thanks for the quick reply.

There is no hurry on the project, so let me know whenever you have a chance to look at the docs.