Hi all,
Just as PowKiddy RGB30 is the perfect handheld for PICO-8, I was wondering which handheld could y'all recommend to run Picotron, including its desktop and the entire development experience. I mean a device that has an option to connect a Bluetooth keyboard & mouse. Thinking about some "recreational coding" gear :-)
I just installed picotron on my clockwork uConsole, had to use box64 since there's no support for arm but it seems to run decently enough, I still haven't tried to do actual coding on it.
I'm pretty annoyed by the trackball, very imprecise and I see it's going to be annoying to draw sprites with it, plus navigation through the code is going to be annoying because there's no scroll wheel.
Also the resolution does not really map in pixel perfect mode so it's either going to look smaller than the screen or blurry scaled up.
I've also been using picotron on my GDP Micro PC from time to time, that one is a pretty nice experience, it runs full windows (or full linux), trackpad is ok, keyboard is ok and thumb typing is pretty nice, would recommend except it's starting to become kind of outdated, I'm looking at the GPD Pocket 3, which is supposed to be its successor with better and more recent specs, but more expensive and slightly bigger
@EDcreative
The steam deck is going to be extremely annoying to work on, the onscreen keyboard is unsuitable and will cover most of what's going to be typed, you'd have to use external mouse and keyboard but then you are limited to working on a table
As for now, without official arm support, only windows-based like ROG Ally, Ayaneo and others
I think the best option for now is a small laptop with 1080p screen (perfect resolution ratio). That's because there are many applications focused in desktop-grade environment, and very few fullscreen games. There is no "sploretron" either. But in the future I believe something like ANBERNIC RG503 (Linux, OLED 16:9 perfect pixel resolution, dual joystick, dpad centric, ABXY + LR) is going to be the best handheld for Picotron
I'd recommend getting a Steam Deck, but Picotron unfortunately doesn't scale perfectly on 720p.
It would require a different resolution, which is not supported:
Chromebook !!!
Just works perfect using Linux (tested amd64).
:)
I've been looking into the uConsole specifically for this and when doing my research into it, it looks like there's a new firmware update for the kayboard part of the handheld (which includes the trackball) that allows the trackball when the keyboard is in Fn mode with the Fn key. Don't know if that's on your's by default but it looks like it would be easy to flash with instructions on their github for it.
Also, how is the screen for Picotron full screened? cause I've seen that it won't allow it to be integer scaled. I imagine it looks okay though due to the size of the screen, but would like to hear your thoughts on it.
@Kaius
we have a devterm, and have had some success running picotron through box64 on a cm4-lite core. with integer scaling turned on, the screen is way too small, and forcing it into fullscreen makes it blurry and not-so-pleasant. the devterm is fun for pico-8, but i don't think we can recommend it for picotron
after playing around with just about every random device with a screen in our house, we resurrected an old nitrocaster-modded x230 thinkpad with a minimal linux install that we configured to launch picotron fullscreen after login (within a barebones i3 session). ultimately, i had to cannibalize that SSD for another project, but it was fun to carry picotron around with us for a while... we've considered getting one of those cheap educational-market fujitsu tablet/laptop combos that have been flooding ebay lately to use as a dedicated picotron machine, but haven't followed through
something like the uConsole with a 1080p display would be ideal, i think, but we're not sure if anything like that is on the horizon
@AdamJ I know there are better ways 2 reach out to you (But I don't Have Twitter or anything else like that) I noticed that you made a little brainF interpreter in pico-8 & I was hoping you could help me follow in your footsteps. I'm also trying to make a brainf fantasy console in Pico-8 / Tron & was hoping for your help! (Click on my profile for more info)
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