Hack-A-Day: Hack-A-Machine

It’s november, and I’ve decided this month that I’m going to do 30 projects in 30 days. It’s an all-month hack-a-thon!

Today’s project is Hack-A-Machine (demo, source). It’s a whimsical VM you can play around with.

I liked this one, but it really didn’t fit into a day too well.

Features include:

  • Edit, save, and share programs!
  • Visual debugger with step, run, pause, and stop!
  • One example program!
  • Weird arithmetic!
  • Negative-364 based addressing!
  • “Touchscreen” display!
  • “Ticker tape” input and output!
  • 21 never before seen instructions!
  • Optional registration!

Sadly not in the “one day” category are

  • good compiler errors
  • line numbering
  • line highlighting when stepping through code
  • syntax highlighting
  • the entire machine 100% working (I tested a little!)
  • fixing all the bugs (there’s a particularly nasty one where you have to save before you run)