6502tinymachines

Learn

The lesson: from a token to a published cart, then one instruction followed into the silicon.

The lesson

  1. Mint a free token

    A token is your key to the chip API. Mint one in the editor: free, one click, shown once. Minting also claims your page and hands you a cart code, the name your first cartridge publishes under.

    Mint one in the editor

  2. Build a cartridge

    A cartridge is a ROM, its tiles and the contract it was written to, in one file. Write it by hand against the console contract, or hand the contract to the AI tool you already use: the MCP server gives it five tools, each a whole errand.

    MCP: five tools for a modelCartridgesThe console contractTwo ways in: page or HTTP

  3. Publish it, and the chip measures it

    Publishing does not upload a claim. The registry runs your cartridge on the die before it is listed, and what it shows beside your ROM is what the chip did: whether it booted, how many frames it finished, the half-cycles each one cost, the tiles it used.

    What others have published

  4. Then follow one instruction into the silicon

    The walk takes one Snake instruction five cycles deep, with the schematics pulled live from the switch network. It is the lesson the whole site is set up to teach: how a line of code becomes gates opening.

    Snake, one instruction deep

Reading

The documentation for this project, in the order it is meant to be read.

  • Build your first cartMint a token, write a ROM against the contract, mint the cartridge, play it, publish it, and read what the chip measured. By hand or by handing this page to an AI
  • VerificationTwo independent oracles, because either alone is insufficient
  • The APIA transistor-level 6502 over HTTP, with the whole machine travelling in every request
  • The chip atlasWhat a wire is part of, walked out of the switch network rather than named by hand
  • The console contractA frame is an agreement between a ROM and its host, not something the silicon knows about
  • CartridgesA ROM, its tiles and the contract it was written to, in one gzipped JSON file
  • MCPFive tools, each one a whole errand, because a model cannot hold 2 KB of hex
  • The registryBuilders and their pages, where publishing measures rather than believes
  • Two ways inThe same engine in a page or over HTTP, and a machine that moves between them
  • What the engine side needsFour measured requests for tinymachines/6502. Three landed; the fourth was withdrawn once it was measured
  • The chip atlas: an address for every partAn address for every part: the rubric, and an entry per container. Generated from the die data
  • How this chip is builtHow the chip is built: the recurring circuit patterns, counted from the switch network
  • Snake, one instruction deepOne Snake instruction followed through the silicon, five cycles deep, with the schematics pulled live
  • Engine-side answers to the Lab's findingsThe engine side of the Halfwave Lab review: what each finding turned out to be, with the tests that hold the answers