Show HN: Python running on the Super Nintendo (in-browser demo)

Show HN: Python running on the Super Nintendo (in-browser demo)(fabian-kuebler.com)

7 points by FabianCarbonara 79 days ago | 8 comments

MicroPython (lexer, compiler and VM) on the SNES: 3.58 MHz 65816, 56 KB Python heap, 16-bit int. The REPL runs right inside the post via EmulatorJS and also works on real hardware via flashcart.

I did this as a benchmark for Claude Fable. When the export ban hit, switching to Opus got the project stuck for three weeks; Fable came back and found the real bug in ninety minutes.

Along the way: 23 compiler bugs and 4 MicroPython bugs, each root-caused with a minimal reproducer and filed upstream.

If you run it on real hardware, I want a picture!

spakisys 79 days ago |

That's absolutely crazy! Compiler bugs and micropython bugs???

On the other end of the cost scale right now, I'm running multiple Deepseek V4 Flash instances basically constantly practically for free (because I'm poor right now) and I'm impressed by that too.

FabianCarbonara 79 days ago | |

The bug count surprised me too. Calypsi is a great compiler, but MicroPython is likely the largest program anyone has pushed through it: a huge interpreter switch, packed structs, setjmp/longjmp exception handling, far pointers everywhere. Corners like that had simply never been compiled before.

zahlman 78 days ago |

So this should be comfortably possible on GBA, yes?

FabianCarbonara 78 days ago | |

Yes, definitely: the GBA is a 32-bit ARM with 256 KB of RAM and mature GCC support, so it sidesteps everything that made this hard: the 16-bit size_t, the far pointers, the barely-stress-tested compiler. The SNES was the fun target though ;)

zahlman 78 days ago | | |

How do you deal with things like e.g. writing sprite bitmap data to specific locations in the VRAM from Python? Or handling the memory-mapped I/O?