#Cactus Codes

[ps-cactus]

[sunshineandlyrics]

🌵 Louis was wearing a Neil Barrett Cactus print T-shirt at Monterrey airport (29 March 2024) that he had worn at Lokerse Feesten on 14 August 2022.

[smbilodeau]

Cactus Blues

[honestcactusblog]

Me and @cat-attack1701 back at it again

[pact-pooh-bah]

Biblically accurate Buck sketches (ft the human one because he's meant to look like that but I have no way to translate it right ingame)

[luckylunatix]

(Little headcanon I had about Boogie Bump/Guest!Micah and Cactus Gunman, when they first run into each other)

Cactus Gunman: It's a pleasure to meet you, uh... Señor?..... -ita??

Guest!Micah: Huh?

Guest!Micah, remembering they're nonbinary and very gnc: Oh

Guest!Micah: Either one is fine, but personally I'd rather skip the honorifics and formal speak. Just call me Micah, pal.

Cactus Gunman, in flustered bisexual: Ah, I, um, see. Wellagainit'snicetomeetyou.....

[vvelegrin]

feeling like a Whole Person tonight despite feeling so tired that i could pass away. that's always nice! i don't care for the alternative (feeling so tired that i could pass away coupled with wanting to pass away).

[cactfold]

(Eyestrainy under cut!!)

So give me a taste of sovereignty

A lantern in the night

Get me away from history

From the cycle's bitter light

From existing out of spite

COME FORTH AND KILL ME!

BOW DOWN AND WORSHIP ME!

TAKE YOUR TIME, ALL WE HAVE IS ETERNITY!

[thelifeofacactus]

Helluva Boss is like if a slightly less shitty version of Bojack Horseman was in an adventure comedy

[cjgladback]

[ID: First image is a swift 8-frame base walk cycle of a stylized 3D scorpion character and an anthropomorphic potted cactus riding in a chair on its back. Nearly everything bounces a little, including the simulated fabric of an umbrella-like sunshade attached to the scorpion's stinger. Only the characters' faces and the cactus's arms have no animation keyed on them.

The second image is a work-in-progress render sequence of the scorpion and cactus characters. It follows the finalization of the scorpion's claw forms, the sculpting and retopologizing of the cactus character, painted textures for each of them, the formation and texturing of the umbrella as well as the chair the cactus is sitting in and the cloth and straps under it, and finally the addition of a not-yet-textured hat that was not in the walk cycle. The rigging of the characters is unseen other than a change in posture of the scorpion's legs. End ID]

After some unexpected travel and delays, I pushed until the final weekend of the Endless Engines challenge but opted not to submit an animation and environment that just made the characters look sloppy. I saw a ton of incredible arthropod, cute, stylized, and desert renders from the community that I'll be rooting for in my place.

So from here on, I'll be keeping the trappings of the challenge that serve the characters but composition, timing, etc can just be for me. I've already slowed things down a bit and raised the main scene camera to see more of the characters (different from the character progress camera used for the renders above). I'm also making all the props, including those whose rigging is a bit more of a puzzle; starting with the hat I modeled during part of stream today. And for the environment I'll be excited to apply the texturing and generative plants skills I gained during the Bellicosaur project to the best of my ability rather than the fastest.

Still thrilled to have gotten that challenge-initiated jump start to make these characters (again, credit to Nicholas Kole) after almost two years of wanting to.

[the-cactusclique]

I was co-rotting with my best friend today and we were talking about rope and I was saying that of all the common kinks I kinda have zero interest in rope bondage and only a vague interest in bondage in general. And I said "I guess I'm really more into the S&M part"

It has now been nearly 4 hours since then and I just realized that actually I'm interested in the DSM part AND I COULD HAVE MADE A DSM-5 JOKE

[deadhoneybee]

My cactus is currently growing at an angle,, nothing helps,, last ditch effort is a yellow bouncy ball for morale.

[dead-end-draws]

Tribe Banner concept art:

Folks seemed to enjoy my WOF WIPS, so here’s more concept art for y’all! My favorite thing about WOF is the potential for world building. I thought it’d be cool to see a tribe emblem represented on a banner/flag of sorts:

Read below for some of the thought process / headcannons behind the design choices: 👇

Skywing Banner:

Skywings pride themselves on 3 things; treasure, fire, & their enormous, soaring wingspan which steals the sky.

As such, portrayed on the banner, the fabric (often made with dyed cow or goat leathers) resembles draped dragon wings. Two Skywings embrace a goblet, which is spewing golden fire.

The banner is often held aloft with iron or gold poles, signifying to other tribes their wealth and pride.

Mudwing banner:

These banners are fashioned with leather hides from cow or crocodile skin, held aloft with bamboo, and painted with a Talon-print & Reed crest.

The talonprint symbolizes community and the strength of Mudwing sibling bonds. The reed border unifies all Mudwings regardless of their relationship to home; the swamp. Bigwings are often seen carrying these into battle, signifing their status and making it easier for a sib to locate them in the flurry of a fight.

Sandwing Banner:

Sandwing flags are made with camel skins and dyed cactus leather.

A crest shows a Sandwing coiled around a beaming sun, a reminder that despite the revered 3 moons, Sandwings are born to thrive in sunlight.

The fabric is cut in a way to mimic the swooping dunes of Sandwing territory. And the poles of the flags are equally intricate, with scorpion tails and golden ropes which frame the banner.

These flags make prominent appearances in parades, festivals, and markets, and even miniature version are often displayed in homes or as tapestries/carpets.

Seawing banner:

These banners are often seen displayed in royal quarters or councils, or above land to mark territory.

A nautilus shell crest on front echoes the swirl-pattern associated with royal Seawings: The banner’s borders resemble waves and a dragon swimming beneath their surface.

These are crafted with rich materials, strung with seashells, pearls, silver dollars, and deep oceanic color fabric. There is severe penalty for Seawings found plucking treasure from the banners, as they are a direct symbol of royalty.

Nightwing Banner:

These banners emphasize the Nightwings’ relationship to the moon, their source of power and praise. The material, a contrast of white stitching against purple velvet showcases moonlight and night, black scales against stars, magic and mystery.

They are seen decorated with 3 moons at the top and a centered dragon reaching up into the night sky.

These banners were often used during the war as secret code by spies to deliver to other tribes. Prophecy scrolls often came attached, delivering cryptic messages or secrets in the night. These banners all helped add to the secrecy of the Dragonet Prophecy, and kept tribes on their toes around Nightwings.

Rainwing banner:

Rainwing banners are not used for battle purposes like other tribes, most are mere decoration, location indicators, and have no unified design.

However, It is said back when Rainwings left the rainforest to trade pre-war, this particular banner design was often raised above Rainwing merchant tables, and showcases the coiled tail of a Rainwing with leaves, vines, and other sights from the rainforest adorning a bamboo pole. Bright color combinations accentuated the flag to entice curious customers.

Now, only one tattered version of the original Rainwing banner remains, displayed proudly in Queen Glory’s quarters, a reminder that building the Rainwings’ community is their most important goal.

Icewing Banner:

These banners reflect the same standards Icewings hold themselves to.

Like a visual of the rankings themselves, each banner is cut perfectly from an Icewing’s trained, serrated claws to resemble icicles, and crafted with fine blue stitching.

Flags are often held aloft with perfectly polished narwhal horn or bone, and can be inlaid with sapphires or diamond.

Icewing soldiers are often gifted these during ceremonies, and perform training exercises with the flags to test their stance/attentiveness. The crest showcases the swift sharpness of ice through a flying dragon, and a snowflake toward the bottom reminding Icewings that even minuscule snowflakes, small things, should be perfect in form.

[overanalysingfandoms]

Words cannot describe how much I love this animatic, I have been watching on repeat and rotating it in my mind all day

Nerdy Prudes Must Die and Secret Life have been the only 2 things in my mind for the last week and this is such a good combination of both

EVERYONE NEEDS TO WATCH THIS

I only have two braincells at the moment and they are Life Series and Nerdy Prudes Must Die

So I mashed them together and made this

[commodorez]

Cactus fascinates me, does it run on code similar to an existing instruction set or is it completely original on that front?

What can you do with it? What's it's storage?

Both the Cactus (the original wooden prototype from years ago) and the new PCB Cactus(es) are essentially derived from a minimal 6502 computer design by Grant Searle for their core logic. Here's what that would look like on a breadboard:

There isn't much to it, it's 32K of RAM, 16K of ROM containing Ohio Scientific's version of Microsoft BASIC, a 6850 ACIA for serial interaction, some logic gates, and of course a 6502 microprocessor (NMOS or CMOS, doesn't matter which). You hook it into a terminal and away you go.

Grant's design in turn can be best described as a distilled, modernized version of the OSI Challenger series of computers. Here's an OSI-400 and a Challenger 4P respectively:

The left one is a replica of the 400 circa 1976, also called the Superboard. It was affordable, endlessly reconfigurable and hackable, but ultimately very limited in capabilities. No BASIC, minimal monitor ROM you talk to over serial, but you could connect it to a bus to augment its features and turn it into a more powerful computer.

Whereas the OSI C4P on the right from about 1979 has more RAM, a video card, keyboard, BASIC built in, serial interface, cassette tape storage, and that's just the standard configuration. There was more room to expand and augment it to your needs inside the chassis (alot changed in 3 years for home computer users).

Grant's minimal 6502 design running OSI BASIC is a good starter project for hobbyists. I learned about the 6502's memory map decoding from his design. I modified and implemented his design on a separate cards that could connect to a larger backplane.

Here are the serial, ROM, RAM, and CPU cards respectively:

Each one is 100% custom, containing many modifications and fixes as I developed the design. However, that's only half of the computer.

I really wanted a 6502 machine with a front panel. People told me "nobody did that", or couldn't think of examples from the 1970s but that seemed really strange to me. Especially since I had evidence to the contrary in the form of the OSI-300:

This one I saw at VCF West back in 2018 illustrates just how limited of a design it is. 128 bytes of RAM, no ROM, no serial -- just you, the CPU, and toggle switches and LEDs to learn the CPU. I was inspired the first time I saw one in 2015 at VCF East, which is probably when this whole project got set in motion.

Later that year I bought a kit for a miniature replica OSI-300 made by Christopher Bachman, and learned really quickly how limited the design philosophy for this particular front panel was. It was a major pain in the ass to use (to be clear, that's by OSI's choice, not any fault of Christopher in his implementation)

So... I designed my own. Took awhile, but that's the core of what the Cactus is: my attempt at experiencing the 1970s homebrew scene by building the computer I would have wanted at the time. Over half of the logic in the Cactus is just to run the front panel's state machine, so you can examine and modify the contents of memory without bothering the 6502. I added in all of the things I liked from more advanced front panels I had encountered, and designed it to my liking.

Here's the original front panel, accompanying logic, and backplane connected to the modern single board computer (SBC) version of the machine:

And here's the new Cactus SBC working with the new front panel PCB, which combines the logic, physical switch mountings, and cabling harnesses into a single printed circuit board.

So, what can you do with it? Pretty much the same things I do already with other contemporary 1970s computers: play around in BASIC, fire up the occasional game, and tinker with it.

I've got no permanent storage designed for the Cactus as yet, it's been one of those "eventually" things. The good news is that a variety of software can be ported to the hardware without too much trouble for an experienced hobbyist. A friend of mine wrote a game called ZNEK in 6502 assembly which runs from a terminal:

Right now, you have to either toggle in machine programs from the front panel from scratch, burn a custom ROM, or connect it to a serial terminal to gain access to its more advanced features:

Here's it booted into OSI BASIC, but I have also added in a modern descendant of Steve Wozniak's WOZMON software for when I need to do lower level debugging.

I've also got a video card now, based on the OSI-440. I have yet to implement a keyboard, or modify BASIC to use the video board instead of the serial connection. Even if I did, screen resolution is pretty limited at 24x24 characters on screen at once. Still, I'm working on that...

Anyway, I hope that answers your question. Check the tags below to see the whole process stretching back to 2017 if you're curious to learn more of the project's history. I'm also happy to answer any more questions you might have about the project.

[ravenwind-75]

Pinterest game: type “me as a character” and chose first 9 images

type quote after it and pick the first one.

Npt: @mspegasus17 @rypnami @anomalyaly @zetadraconis11 @ps-cactus @bookie-bookdust and YOU 🫵

(Why is this so Jude Duarte coded?) also got images that remind me of Ember and Adelia.