Having purchased PICO-8 I am definitely working on my game. I can say it will be a card game with some rather unusual playing cards and - believe it or not, some actual music. I'm finally understanding how to write music in the blessed thing.

So are you ready to purchase the POCKET CHIP ?

Yes, I understand. You have questions. I have questions, too.

I found this rather informative video in Youtube HERE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnDbB6YlPvo

And he does seem to go in some nice detail about the hand held system.

I am understanding it is not very fast. He earlier demonstrated in a previous video on the $9 chip (rather famous chip now), that it can barely run an NES emulator and is 1-2 frames per second when attempting to play an online Youtube video. That says a lot to me.

I suspect then it does not play offline videos very quickly either nor may it play audio files such as .Mp3, .OGG, or .WMA very well. I would need someone who has the device to correct me on this - and I hope I am wrong.

If you are buying the POCKET CHIP, it most definitely is because you want to have PICO-8 on the go whether it's in playing the games, making mods in them to make them easier, or if you want to build your own from scratch - and the device does not do too much more than that.

Now if PICO-8 v0.1.8 can do input where I can use a regular keyboard and type out names and numbers in the runtime where the input works Online in Firefox, Offline in the EXE I bought, and will also work on the Pocket CHIP where you can hit the keys there for input, then this will be enough to win me over to buy one.

But I would want to be certain this input method would work with all three platforms. At the moment - I just don't know.

I mentioned earlier it would be nice if there was a POCKET CHIP forum where the device itself was dissected and catalogued in its entirety for would-be purchasers. ESPECIALLY the very version that is sent out when you buy it from Next Thing Co.

. . .

Also, here are a few notes I've written since I started using the system:

Problems & Situations:

Code usage does not appear until it reaches over 128-bytes.

You cannot use any ANY keys from the number keypad if it NUM LOCK is off. No arrow keys or INS or DEL from the number keypad, even if the NUMBER LOCK is off.

You cannot use any arrow keys to navigate the mouse when in edit code mode even if =F10= is turned on.

You must type parenthesis for functions that return no value, I.E.: RECTFILL CIRCFILL CLS

I thought there was only 32k coding space. I saw this in some Youtube videos. It shows that I have 64k, no complaints - wish it were higher though, say 4gb) at 4096k. Perhaps allow this through modification of configuration file.

Would like to have option to go to 256-colors and option for larger screen, say 800x600. 480x272 is same size as POCKET CHIP and PSP. At least to offer this resolution. Still will be compatible with all hardware scaling up.

With increased memory you could add true .WAV files, .MID, and possibly the start of .WMA and .OGG.

Would like option to zoom to full-screen size with benefit of still showing icons and clock in taskbar.

COMMANDS: I would like to see a working example program in the HELP for every single command that PICO can do. An earlier programming language for Windows 3.1 provided this and it was invaluable to my learning the code and where it could be used.