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Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to 4-bit Brick Game emulator in ASCII graphics

Brick Game emulator (4-bit Holtek chip), runs in a terminal - ilyakurdyukov/brickgame-4bit

This is an ASCII-based emulator of classic 4-bit brick games, the simple handheld electronic games popular decades ago. It recreates the original gameplay experience using text characters for graphics rather than… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. 4-bit Brick Game emulator in ASCII graphics launched in 2023; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1

    Run KolibriOS, Linux or Windows 98 in your browser

    2013 · copy.sh · its alternatives →

  2. 2TI

    I realized that the PDF engines of modern desktop browsers (PDFium and PDF.js) support JavaScript with enough I/O primitives to make a basic game like Tetris. It was a bit tricky to find a union of features that work in both engines, but in the end it turns out that showing/hiding annotation "fields" works well to make monochrome pixels, and keyboard input can be achieved by typing in a text input box. All in all it's quite janky but a nice reminder of how general purpose PDF scripting can be. The linked PDF is all ASCII so you can just open it in a text editor, or have a look at…

    2025 · th0mas.nl · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    A while back I wrote a CHIP-8 emulator (which is considered the Hello, World! of emulators and is more accurately a virtual machine since historically CHIP-8 was an interpreted language running on top of the COSMAC VIP to make game programming easier). But a few months ago I got really interested in embedded software, so decided it would be neat to port my emulator to a STM32 MCU and design a console around it as a learning experience, since CHIP-8 never existed as a physical system. I didn't know much about embedded software when I began, and even less about electronics, but I managed to…

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

  4. 4GB

    Hey HN, Over the past ~1.5 years, I built an open-source FPGA retro emulation handheld that can play Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance cartridges. To my knowledge, there isn't an existing open-source FPGA emulator that can play physical cartridges like this. One of my main goals was to do all of the pieces myself, and be able to understand every component of it, so I designed my own PCB, wrote the firmware, wrote a Game Boy and Game Boy Advance emulator for the FPGA (using the Chisel HDL), and designed a 3D-printed case. I detailed the design and development process in the…

    2025 · eli.lipsitz.net · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    :tv: An (almost) fully featured Game Boy emulator. - Dooskington/GameLad

    2016 · github.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    Yet another 6502 emulator that one day dreams of being an Atari 2600. - haldean/x6502

    2013 · github.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    NES emulator written in Rust. Contribute to pcwalton/sprocketnes development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2013 · github.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    Render 3D models (OBJ, glTF, GLB, STL, .vox) as ASCII art — in the browser, in React or Vue, or straight in your terminal. A three.js-style API with no WebGL and no canvas: just text in a single <pre>.

    Jun 2026 · glyphcss.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    To try it out, simply build the project yourself from source, or use attached bootable ISO image of the system (in Releases on Github) and run it in QEMU. https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.vxn.dev&#x2F;rou2exos-rusted-edition

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    A Chip8 emulator written in JavaScript. Contribute to victorqribeiro/Chip8js development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11
    OpenEmu▲185

    🎮Retro video game emulation for OS X

    2015 · openemu.org · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    CHIP-8 console on FPGA. Contribute to pwmarcz/fpga-chip8 development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2018 · github.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    Z80-based CP/M emulator, in golang. Happily runs Zork, Microsoft BASIC, Turbo Pascal, Wordstar, etc. - skx/cpmulator

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    Learn how classic game hardware worked. Write code and see it run instantly.

    2016 · 8bitworkshop.com · its alternatives →

  15. 15IM

    Hi, As a 8-bit C64 game coder in eaarly 90ties and currently mostly FE-focused dev, decided to give a go to a simple retro game archive. This is purely fun project - so i decided to post it to HN, mayne it'll resonate :)

    2023 · polishpixels.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16D1

    I made a Doom source port that runs within a PDF file. I was inspired by the recent HN post about Tetris in a PDF (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=42645218) and I wondered if I could get Doom to run using a similar method. It turns out that old versions of Emscripten can compile C to asm.js code that will happily run inside the limited JS runtime of the PDF engine. I used the doomgeneric (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ozkl&#x2F;doomgeneric) fork of the original Doom source, as that made writing the IO fairly easy. All I had to do was implement a framebuffer and…

    2025 · doompdf.pages.dev · its alternatives →

  17. 17
    Delta▲245

    The first Gameboy emulator approved in the App Store

    2024 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    If you live in the terminal, kitty is made for you! Cross-platform, fast, feature-rich, GPU based. - kovidgoyal/kitty

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    Got Tetris running on a 26€ STM32F429 Discovery board emulating the Game Boy CPU and graphics on the ARM Cortex M4. Really fun project to hack together, need to try the original Game Boy Pokemon (red&#x2F;blue) games next.

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

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  21. 21

    Retro RPG Game Maker. Contribute to ericoporto/fgmk development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2016 · github.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22
    c64js▲100

    A commodore 64 emulator

    2016 · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    RetroTick parses PE&#x2F;NE&#x2F;MZ binaries, emulates an x86 CPU, and stubs enough Win32&#x2F;Win16&#x2F;DOS APIs to run classics like FreeCell, Minesweeper, Solitaire and QBasic, entirely in the browser. Built with Preact + Vite + TypeScript. Demo: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;retrotick.com GitHub: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;lqs&#x2F;retrotick

    Feb 2026 · retrotick.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    Contribute to sacert/Gameboy development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

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