hi initramfs, i responded to robottoaster who referenced patent encumbered mp4, as alternatives there are vp9 and av1.
image formats are more backward compatible, but at some point one has to ask, how low do you want to go? vp9 plays on iphones from 2020 and android phones from 2010. I think animated avif files are basically av1 video files, like animated webp is vp8/9 video.
Animated gif is playable anywhere, but 10x bigger. For a wiggle blog or website I'd provide animated png alongside anaglyph, or anaglyph only.
There is also animated Jpeg XL *.jxl files for the bleeding edge. It's a pure image format but support is not there yet.
This dopamine phracking reminds me of neal stephenson's "snow crash".
"[.] a counter-virus (known as the nam-shub of Enki), which, when delivered, stopped the Sumerian language from being processed by the brain and led to the development of other, less literal languages, giving birth to the Babel myth. L. Bob Rife had been collecting Sumerian artifacts and developed the drug Snow Crash to make the public vulnerable to new forms of me, which he would control."
Yes! It's similar to people sharing a simple url within a QR code only. I find it insulting and inconvenient - i can remember or jot down and type in a url - i don't need a smartphone to do that.
In theory you could put a small html/website in a dense QR code, that would be truly offline - it's a similar thing.
There are also the Pico-8 cardridge format, where a game is stenographically embedded in a PNG
https://github.com/l0kod/PX8
A fast paced SF card game. Players build galactic civilizations by simultaneously selecting roles (like Explore, Develop, or Settle), which dictates the phases that occur that round.
- New Frontiers
Often described as "Race for the Galaxy: The Board Game." It takes the core role-selection mechanisms of Race for the Galaxy but implements them into a more spatial and resource-driven board game format.
- Imperial Settlers
A deceptively cute but highly competitive engine-building card game. Players take on the role of asymmetrical historical factions (Romans, Barbarians, Egyptians, etc.) to gather resources, build locations, and occasionally raze their opponents' buildings to score the most victory points.
- Kyoto Shogi
A fast-paced micro-variant of traditional Japanese Shogi played on a tiny 5x5 board. Its defining twist is that pieces alternate between their promoted and demoted states every time they move, requiring serious forward-thinking and tactical planning.
- Seirawan Chess
A chess variant by grandmaster Yasser Seirawan. It is played on a standard 8x8 board but introduces two fairy pieces: the Elephant (combines movement of Knight & Rook) and the Hawk (combines movement of Knight & Bishop), which are dropped onto the board as the starting pieces move.
- Star Trek: Captain's Chair
An asymmetrical deck-building game where players take control of iconic captains and factions from the Star Trek universe (like the Federation, Klingons, or Romulans). It also has a strategic combat and resource management system.
- Gaia Project
An SF successor to Terra Mystica. You control one of 14 asymmetric alien factions, expanding across the galaxy by terraforming planets to match environmental needs. An economic eurogame with a tech tree.
- Cry Havoc
A card-driven, asymmetrical area control game set in a sci-fi universe. Four different factions (including native aliens and invading humans) fight for supremacy.
- AuZtralia / TaZmania (Expansion)
Set in an alternate-reality 1930s where humanity fled to Australia only to find it populated by Lovecraftian Old Ones. It blends economic route-building (railways and farming) with tower-defense combat. The TaZmania expansion has a dual-sided map specifically designed for solo or 2-player games, including a randomized terrain side.
- Lancaster
A 15th-century worker placement and area-majority game. Your "workers" are knights of varying strengths. Stronger knights can physically bump weaker knights out of locations. Players manage their forces to gain resources, vote on shifting game laws, and fight alongside the King in France.
- Calico
A cozy but brain-burning puzzle game. You draft different colored and patterned hex tiles to sew a patchwork quilt. Score points by completing design goals, sewing on buttons, and attract specific cats to sleep on their fav patterns.
That doesn't answer the question, I'm curious too. I think there's a speed and battery advantage on the A19 Pro chip compared to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, but to know for sure one has to run the same model used in the most efficient way on both machines (flagships ios and android).
Seirawan Chess, Euroshogi, Fischer Random/chess960 (or chess18) or Crazyhouse are other ways to make chess more interesting or less predictable.
In this video Fischer briefly and enthusiastically talks about this topic.
He talks about Fischer Random and he suggests the Capablanca proposal might be even better, and there can be even more creative variants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb7-0R2qg98
I like Seirawan Chess and Euroshogi a lot, next to King of the Hill and other games like Minishogi, Tak, Tzaar and RftG.
I'd be ok with it if it's possible to use all the insights and software from after that, we'd just be constrained by the hardware - the Amiga 4000, Apple Mac Quadra 840av 128 MB or a Pentium 66 MHz or the 486 DX2-66 with 64 MB ram.
On the Amiga4000 and Apple you could run their 'native' OS, or you could run a modern day NetBSD or a BeOS version (HaikuOS wouldn't run).
On the Pentium-66, modern Freedos would run, Windows 3.11+win32s+calmira, Windows98SE, Windows2000sp5, XPlite, NetBSD and perhaps even an absolutely stripped down Linux 6 kernel with all the features that would be handy.
You could program in a modern i586 build FreePascal, Zig, Lua, juniper, micropython/shedskin, mruby/natalie, picoruby, juniper - perhaps a low memory JVM could run (OpenJDK 8 or JamVM).
It'd be possible to use sqlite, raylib and r3d-freepascal for efficient 3D games/apps next to Quake/Darkplaces, Doom2/GZDoom, Duke3D, Counterstrike 1.5, Halflife, perhaps Unreal1, Irrlicht and FTEQW.
Modern LambdaMOO's Toastunt/Moor could be made to run and inform6 and tads3 interactive fiction compilers.
Fairy-Stockfish could be compiled - so enough creativity for gaming.
I am just worried about getting Vassal, the java boardgame game engine to run comfortably... but the resolution would be pretty low to play many boardgames comfortably: the highest ATI card could drive 1280x1024. I would really like to use it so I don't have the real world board game setup time. Keldons Race for the Galaxy would compile and run though.
For internet, Dillo+ supports https, gemini and gopher.
https://github.com/crossbowerbt/dillo-plus
This can also be used to browse zim offline wikipedia files with kiwix-serve.
Now my only real problem is that we wouldn't have GenAI - probably EVER - would that be a blessing or a curse?
---
Handy Linux kernel 6 tweaks for low memory situations if you don't want to run NetBSD (which perhaps would be the best choice):
* zram + zstd
zram creates a compressed block device in your RAM. To the OS, it looks like a regular swap partition, but it lives entirely in memory.
When your 64MB fills up, the kernel sends data to /dev/zram0. The data is compressed (usually 3:1 ratio) and stored back in a small slice of your RAM.
Version 6.19 includes better compression ratios and rebalancing. It prevents the CPU from over-working itself on decompression.
* zswap + zstd
zswap is a front-end for a physical swap file on your hard drive.
It intercepts pages headed for the hard drive, compresses them, and keeps them in a RAM pool. If that pool gets too full, it evicts the oldest compressed data to the actual disk. Starting in 6.18, zswap transitioned to using the zsmalloc allocator by default. This reduces "internal fragmentation," meaning it packs those compressed bytes tighter.
* frontswap
API that allows the kernel to intercept swap-outs and store them in a transient memory pool; it works with Zswap to keep the system responsive during high load.
* Maple tree
Replaces old "Red-Black trees" for memory management; it reduces the CPU cycles needed to find data in RAM.
* SLUB sheaves
A modern memory allocator optimization that packs small objects into "sheaves" to reduce fragmentation.
* CONFIG_SLOB_BERBER
A specialized 2025 backport of the old "SLOB" allocator; a memory-efficient way to handle kernel objects, saving roughly 1-2MB of overhead compared to the standard SLUB used in modern PCs.
* Ext4 without journaling
Disable the "Journal" to save RAM and disk writes; it provides the best file-allocation speed without the memory overhead of Btrfs.
* Reiser4 patch
An efficient file system for small files; it packs them directly into the tree nodes, which saves disk space and reduces I/O.
* KSM (Kernel Shared Memory)
Scans RAM for identical pages (like duplicate library code) and merges them into one; it’s a "free" RAM upgrade if you run multiple instances of the same program.
* Very High Frequency (VHF) HZ Tuning
Manually setting CONFIG_HZ to 100 (instead of the modern 1000); this reduces the number of times the CPU "wakes up" per second, saving precious cycles for actual work.
* DevTmpfs
Automates device node creation entirely within the kernel; it saves you from running a heavy udev or mdev daemon in userland, freeing up roughly 2–5MB of RAM.
* LZ4 Compression for Kernel/Initramfs
Using LZ4 instead of xz, gzip or zstd for the kernel image.
plays board games offline and online (BGA, TTS, Board Games VR, Tabletop Playground, AllOnBoard or Vassal)
groks books and dance
interact - bsky.app/profile/monsuta - fsiefken at gmail - meet.hn/city/52.0907006,5.1215634/Utrecht