[HN Gopher] Automat
___________________________________________________________________
Automat
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 207 points
Date : 2024-11-01 01:07 UTC (6 days ago)
(HTM) web link (automat.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (automat.org)
| surprisetalk wrote:
| Marek gave some helpful background for this project during a
| recent Future of Coding meetup (first demo in the stream).
|
| [0] https://mrogalski.eu
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7z77QGARLE
|
| [2] https://futureofcoding.org
| chirau wrote:
| I don't get it, what is this supposed to be? Another drag and
| drop? I am failing to understand the uniqueness of this.
|
| Also, if you put the cup on the tape and try to move the tape,
| the cup removes itself.
| nusl wrote:
| Drag the floppy to the console and you'll get a download link
| for the tool.
| Mashimo wrote:
| Got so far, but what does the tool do?
| stavros wrote:
| It looks like it's some sort of game-playing AI?:
|
| > Automat's objective is to be able to semi-autonomously
| play a variety of games. It's the first step towards a more
| general environment for interacting with computers.
|
| That's not what I got from the notebook, though. From the
| notebook, I thought it was some sort of new programming
| paradigm, so I'm confused.
| trebligdivad wrote:
| That was very touchy for me; it took 4 or 5 goes to get the
| floppy in, at least. The tape worked easily. (I didn't see
| the floppy or notebook being able to do anything)
| nuxi wrote:
| Open the notebook and flip through it. Drink the coffee (drag
| the mug downwards). Put the floppy in the device. Put the VHS
| tape in the device.
| nmstoker wrote:
| That's an illustration of the difficulties. I got the disk,
| video dvd and even drank the coffee but I initially thought
| the notebook was some sort of box for the video so didn't
| realise you could open it to read!
| nuxi wrote:
| I think that's on purpose/by design, so that users are
| nudged into exploring. Things like these were pretty common
| in adventure games back in the days, which I probably spent
| too much time on playing...
| elric wrote:
| I first tried to shake the coffee to see if I could make a
| mess, didn't work. When the mug is empty, the github logo
| becomes visible and you can click through to the github repo.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| How do you open the notebook?
|
| I can drag it around, no problem. The cursor also changes to
| a pointy hand when over notebook's right side, but clicking
| doesn't do anything. Nor does click-and-hold-then-dragging.
| nuxi wrote:
| Clicking on the right side (pointy hand) worked for me.
| SirFatty wrote:
| "Automat's objective is to be able to semi-autonomously play a
| variety of games. It's the first step towards a more general
| environment for interacting with computers."
| tsunamifury wrote:
| It's like a mini myst puzzle as an way of consuming content
| nusl wrote:
| I like the easter egg where you can drink the coffee if you drag
| it to the bottom of the screen.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| You just came up with a good name for this type of interface:
| the _Easter Egg Interface_ in which everything need to be
| discovered, a bit like walking through a forest with paths to
| the South, South-East and North and there is an old house there
| with a mailbox, the flag on the mailbox is raised.
| throwanem wrote:
| The name in vogue a few decades back was "mystery meat
| navigation."
| ileonichwiesz wrote:
| That just sounds like an interface without enough affordances
| to be understandable to the user. Reminds me of Snapchat (at
| least when I used it a couple years back) - to block a user
| just tap and hold their name, then swipe right twice, then
| turn your phone upside down.
| owlninja wrote:
| A point and click adventure :)
| can16358p wrote:
| It was lovely until I double tapped and accidentally zoomed in
| with no apparent way to zoom back out again.
|
| Otherwise, lovely.
| throwanem wrote:
| An interesting experiment, very reminiscent of the early 90s'
| Magic Cap, Microsoft Bob, et al. But objects in physical space
| afford a discoverability that can't be replicated here, and the
| metaphor thus quickly and inevitably becomes a burden.
| ActionHank wrote:
| Also, in the Flash days, everyone and their dog had this sort
| of thing as their personal \ portfolio site.
| RedNifre wrote:
| You can't put the diskette into the device by pushing it in.
| Instead, you have to hold it at a position that makes an arrow
| appear and when you release it, it will push itself magically.
| sunbum wrote:
| What even is it? I read the github repo but that explains nothing
| about what it actually is.
| harel wrote:
| Yes
| AnyTimeTraveler wrote:
| From the Github Readme[1]:
|
| Automat's objective is to be able to semi-autonomously play a
| variety of games. It's the first step towards a more general
| environment for interacting with computers.
|
| Currently Automat's functionality is limited to keyboard macro
| recording & playback. It's fairly unstable but if you're lucky
| and it runs on your machine, it can be useful for automating
| some basic actions.
|
| [1] https://github.com/mafik/automat
| marcellus23 wrote:
| That's not really helpful. It's software that plays games on
| its own? But also it's some sort of new GUI environment? But
| also, all it can do is record and playback keyboard macros?
| What actually _is_ it?
|
| edit: I haven't downloaded it because I don't have access to
| a Windows PC. But I guess, based on that description, it's
| basically AutoHotkey with a snazzy UI?
| tantalor wrote:
| Finally, I can automate Factorio.
| philote wrote:
| Yeah I had no clue what this site was until reading the
| comments. I saw you could move things on the page around, then
| gave up because I had no idea what the point was. I didn't even
| find the github link until I saw your comment and decided to
| play around more.
| gtsnexp wrote:
| Is this something like LabView for hippies?
| itronitron wrote:
| Interesting, there is a short description of the project in the
| Moleskine book that you can click through after dragging it into
| view.
| andai wrote:
| Man, I thought that was a dead tablet!
|
| The notes within are interesting, though it's not clear to me
| if Automat itself meets those ideals? (Or even tries to? From
| what I understood, the notebook seems to first praise tech that
| is ubiquitous and enduring, but then rejects web apps due to
| bloat?)
| donalhunt wrote:
| What is this wonderful device that takes VHS tapes and floppies?
| :)
| sevensor wrote:
| The old skeuomorphism used analog analogies. I like that this
| demo uses older computing technology.
|
| Generally I think the time is right for a reversion to richer
| textured interfaces. GUIs are pretty pointless for 90% of the
| desktop software I use, but if you're not going to do the
| decent thing and give me a good textual interface, at least
| give me some eye candy instead of these stale, dreary flat
| interfaces.
| sourcepluck wrote:
| Ah, I guess then that this is unrelated to the 1978 Brazilian
| electronic music LP?
|
| https://www.discogs.com/release/443321-Automat-Automat
| "in the beginning there was the "MACHINE" the survival and
| the organization of the planet depended upon the "MACHINE"
| the future an the past depend upon the "MACHINE"... the
| past? but who wanted the "MACHINE"... ?"
| andai wrote:
| Delightful! I wish there was more.
| protocolture wrote:
| I like how the website is a great visual description of why
| skeumorphism is terrible. Its also fun to use.
| creativenolo wrote:
| This style of website will be rife soon - there's more and more
| popping up. Even yesterday, I was looking at
| https://comancheindians.tilda.ws/en
|
| These websites would have been super hard to resource the assets,
| but now with Gen AI it's simple.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| When I was at university, Flash was very popular.
|
| Websites like this were our main projects.
|
| It was easy to make them team projects, they asked us to split
| between programmer and designer.
|
| The designer had to create the assets.
|
| We had a photo lab and the designer was sent into town to take
| photos.
|
| We weren't allowed to use stock images, which would have
| speeded up the process.
|
| However, it was still relatively simple for young adults to
| create the elements.
|
| AI is cool, and yes, it will make everything faster.
|
| But I don't think the wall here was feasibility, it's more that
| the skeuomorphism trends ended and the market was saturated
| with highly dynamic interactive websites thanks to Flash making
| them easy to manage.
|
| So the trends stopped.
|
| It's nice to see it coming back, it was a lot of fun creating
| them.
| falloon wrote:
| Why is this formatted like one of those wanky linkedin posts?
| pixelatedindex wrote:
| I can't imagine the way you build this website is the same way
| you build your static sites or a landing page. Is it WebGL?
| Looks extremely complex to be honest.
| Onavo wrote:
| The trick is to use a game engine or something similar (not
| vanilla CSS/HTML). Flutter web would work well here, once
| Safari's WebAssembly GC support gets merged, you will have a
| lot of options.
| mafik wrote:
| Author here :) There is no trick here actually. It's just
| HTML / JS / CSS. Browsers are pretty good at compositing CSS
| transforms - and know how to handle DOM updates coming from
| event handlers & requestAnimationFrame. There is one CSS hint
| that speeds it up a little "will-change: transform". Another
| important ingredient is to update the object position in the
| (pointermove) event handler - so that the responsiveness is
| low - physics engines also could do this, but it's usually an
| overkill.
|
| You can take a look at the script in the website's sources -
| it's inline.
| BJones12 wrote:
| There's a name collision with
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat
| timdiggerm wrote:
| Only if the context in which you're writing/speaking is such
| that you are likely to be referring to a historical restaurant
| genre or whatever this thing is
| alex_young wrote:
| Automata were super common in popular culture in the 50s and
| 60s. The way of the future. I think many people would first
| think of them, especially without context.
| rdlw wrote:
| Automat is a common European word for 'machine' or 'vending
| machine', many languages have it.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| I tried for a while to spill the coffee on everything, but I was
| never able to make it happen.
| kerblang wrote:
| Aaaand I'm still stuck on the anachronistic idea of hierarchical
| menus with text that explains what you're about to do, along with
| keyboard shortcuts and - in the non-mac world - "mnemonics"
| (sequential keyboard shortcuts).
|
| High-efficiency symbolic communication, in other words.
| jszymborski wrote:
| Kinda wish the coffee mug left a coffee ring when you set it on
| the napkin.
| mafik wrote:
| Yes! I wish CSS had decals support!
| thih9 wrote:
| Is there a way to play with the app presented in the video?
|
| Edit: Looks like you have to pick the blue 3.5 floppy, insert it
| into the video player and then you see the links to download
| windows / linux binaries[1].
|
| [1]: https://github.com/mafik/automat/releases
| DrDeadCrash wrote:
| After ignoring the download links I ejected the floppy, drank
| some coffee, and read from the notebook. What did you try?
| tills13 wrote:
| So let me get this straight, not only does it not explain what it
| is, it's a bit of a puzzle to even get to the download links, and
| then it straight up downloads an .exe which you expect me to run
| on my computer?
|
| Give me more info without me having to pry it out of you through
| finding your github which honestly isn't much more descriptive.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| I wish web designers would understand they do not have
| unilateral, unchecked power to make my browser do what they
| want - if they want that power they're going to have to ship a
| PDF or a program.
|
| The accessibility for this site additionally looks like it's a
| goddamn nightmare.
| vivzkestrel wrote:
| if I have to sit and think about what to do on your website
| without reading a manual, then it has already failed the user
| experience department
| aaronharnly wrote:
| If you click on the moleskine notebook, you can read seven
| pages of "handwritten" notes, though they are full of analogies
| and exhortations that still don't actually explain what it is.
| lancewiggs wrote:
| However if you double click and it zooms in there is no way
| to zoom out to actually see both sides of the notebook.
| usefulcat wrote:
| I did click on it and got nothing. It appeared to 'pick up'
| and then immediately 'put down' the notebook. Guess I wasn't
| holding my mouth right..
| soerxpso wrote:
| I like the website. The little puzzle holds my attention for
| enough seconds to make me curious. The issue is just the lack
| of information after you figure it out. I still can't tell what
| this software is. It "plays games"? Is it supposed to be a
| game-playing AI? Is it a game console? A fantasy console? A
| game engine?
| Theodores wrote:
| I don't think you are the intended audience for this. I also
| don't think the project is finished.
|
| It is great to see projects like this, clearly a labour of love
| rather than beaten out of someone for some faceless corporate
| website.
|
| It is always the experiments like this that you remember. 99%
| of the web is a forgettable experience.
|
| Props to the creator for sharing this with us.
| smokel wrote:
| There is some more information on their GitHub page [1].
|
| _" Automat's objective is to be able to semi-autonomously play
| a variety of games. It's the first step towards a more general
| environment for interacting with computers."_
|
| [1] https://github.com/mafik/automat
| outlore wrote:
| perhaps off topic: for many months i've been thinking about
| creating tactile buttons. are there any APIs to produce vibration
| in the phone via the browser? i'd like a way to create a
| vibration response curve when toggling a switch. i'd like to feel
| the friction and resistance like a real-life switch. is this
| within the realm of possibility with current browser APIs?
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Vibration_A...
|
| Not supported on iOS
| outlore wrote:
| thanks will look into it, pity about iOS
| tolerance wrote:
| It's interesting to observe how something so outwardly trivial or
| whimsical can elicit a visceral agitation borne from ignorance.
| distalx wrote:
| I think it's got a unique, nerdy charm that stands out in the
| best way.
| recursive wrote:
| I appreciate the whimsy, but also, I don't have the patience to
| figure out how to do anything with this.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| I was really hoping for a web ode to Horn & Hardart [1] or at the
| very least FEBO [2].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_%26_Hardart
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FEBO
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Its 1998 again!
| jollyllama wrote:
| > "Future proofing means to run on any computer, regardless of
| its form factor. From PC to VR goggles..."
|
| > "Some devices will require headless operation. They should
| still be accessible over some web-based interface."
|
| > Running on any hardware (let's but (sic) the bar at Raspberry
| PI (sic)) means that every megabyte counts.
|
| > "This elliminates (sic) browser-based solutions at the get go"
|
| How does that conclusion follow from anything that was said?
| rougka wrote:
| Reminds me of Spycraft: The Great Game
|
| I am pretty sure it had this kind of interface complete with the
| sound effects, or maybe i am confusing it with another game from
| that era
| mplewis wrote:
| The splash page is nearly illegible. The only textual description
| of what this product is renders partially outside of the
| viewport. The splash video has a fake-LCD effect and is so small
| that I can't see what it is demonstrating. What is this thing?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-11-07 23:00 UTC)