Item — HN Reader

A generation of programmers might disagree with you.

Multiplication instructions and hash tables (!) are easily worked around, as evidenced by decades of art and innovation programmed on that "terrible" CPU. There are still 6502 programmers today delivering games, art, demoscene, etc.

That CPU was a foundation of the home computer and console revolution: BBC, Commodore, Atari (consoles and computers), Apple, and Nintendo (NES).

2 comments

It's just not the same class of devices. The tiniest IoT-focused subsets of .NET will still require more than 64KB of RAM and 192KB or so of mass storage. You could try and implement some minimum viable WASM subset (I think the issues that made WASM non-viable on microcontrollers and the like have been addressed by now) since the overall architecture is likely simpler, but even that is rather dubious and more like something that could be appropriate on slightly newer 16-bit machines.

I don't think that games, art and the demoscene can be used as evidence here. Implementing something like C# means you have a spec to implement. You have to be creative with the implementation without violating that spec.

All the three of games/art/demoscene on something like the C64 have a rough idea as the spec, but then you'll get creative about how much of that "spec" you can bend and violate to meet the technical limitations of the C64, while still being fun.