> A single E-Reader dotstrip can store 2,192 bytes of data, which is just over 2kb. But there is some overhead with the headers […] data on the dotstrip is compressed though

> In the end I didn't need to do too much space optimization to keep Solitaire down to two dotstrips

So, a full implementation of Solitaire in ~4KiB. Count me impressed!

I like to show off that my own (as a web app: https://FreeSolitaire.win) is "only" 21KiB, but that’s small fry in comparaison!

I used to _love_ the E-Reader, and had a huge stack of cards for it.

It was neat that it integrated into so many different games. I think my favourites were playing NES ExciteBike and the Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald trainer cards.

The E-Reader is only surpassed by the GameBoy Camera.

Reading this, it seems like the Z80 emulator is a Gameboy emulator and the quirks that the dev was finding with the Z80 emulation was due to it not really being a Z80 emulator?

The “weird crippled z80” is the GB/C cpu which is indeed a z80 with some things removed and a few added.

Why do they say it's running on a Z80 emulator? Doesn't the GBA have a Z80 CPU (or rather the SM83 variant) to run GB and GBC games?

If you think this is cool, then check out this guy that made additional dlc for some of the pokemon games that had new items and events distributed by dot card: https://youtu.be/fgX36SAeTwQ?si=p5YXONlbbAHW1mLe https://youtu.be/6j4CfGlHFI8?si=Bento62buP6g974z

It's pretty cool as he covers using the internal api that the pokemon games implement to handle the dot card data as well.

I live deep dives like this into something obscure and cool! Looks like fun

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/retrogamedev/comments/1gglfqx/cramm...

Great article! I think the tiny size of the cards, the Z80 VM, and the high-ish level "scripting" API make the E-Reader a really interesting platform. I might try writing something for it if I ever get around to it.

This was a great read, the debugging substory in particular. I bought the unpopular E-Reader as a kid and felt pretty ripped off by it. If only I had known there was a z80 emulator inside. ;)

Does someone knows what the Mosaic E-Reader API call does?

``` RST8_26h Mosaic ;bg<n>cnt.bit6=a.bit<n>, [400004Ch]=de ```

Love this! And love what they did with ERAPI. Do we know specifically who created that?

Really wish i knew where my E-Reader wondered off to years ago. maybe one day it will show up again. I think about it time to time and wondered about the programming challenges it must have had.

With compression, elimination of dependencies, and the THUMB instruction set, would a version written in C have fit on a single card?

Super cool, I love this!

here is a nice Yukon solitaire variant, that is guaranteed solvable. https://www.solitairle.com/

But can it run Doom?

impressive!