QBasic came with NIBBLES.BAS, a snake game using text-mode characters as “pixels”. Specifically it faked a 80x50 “pixel” grid using the standard 80x25 text screen where each 8-bit (=1 byte) text character made up two monochrome pixels using ▄ or ▀ or █ or an empty space.
I assume the name derived from the fact that, in a way, one pixel was “using half a byte”, i. e. a nibble.
I want to believe…
Also halfway between a bit and a byte is a nibble.
I do love scientice’s collective sense of humour. I’d give good odds it was initially suggested down the pub (or similar).
Science pubs are some of the best pubs.
The fact that Java compiles into Jars always makes me smile.
QBasic came with NIBBLES.BAS, a snake game using text-mode characters as “pixels”. Specifically it faked a 80x50 “pixel” grid using the standard 80x25 text screen where each 8-bit (=1 byte) text character made up two monochrome pixels using ▄ or ▀ or █ or an empty space.
I assume the name derived from the fact that, in a way, one pixel was “using half a byte”, i. e. a nibble.