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SimHacker
micropolis
C2015–2026
SimHacker / micropolis

micropolis

Automatically exported from code.google.com/p/micropolis

Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
7Distinct people
53Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
1.1KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Automatically exported from code.google.com/p/micropolis

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

I love this article! Great analysis and solutions. It's nice when user interface designers care enough to think through, implement, try out, and refine such important details.…

DonHopkins used a recommendation phrase. 2 indexed comments match. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 7:02:50 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year53 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2015-04-01 11:00:56 UTC to 2026-10-24 12:55:29 UTC.

0510152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments20152016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 1 submissions, 3 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 6 mentions; 0 submissions, 6 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments20202021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 13 mentions; 1 submissions, 12 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 0 submissions, 5 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 0 submissions, 5 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 0 submissions, 5 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC413
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC606
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC13112
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC505
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC505
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC505
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404

What Hacker News says

4 sources
DonHopkins·Sep 25, 2017
I made the X11 SimCity code that updates the small map (which usually has only a few pixels changed, but sometimes has many pixels changed) compare the "before" and "after" images and count the differences, and if there were few enough differences, it would sort the changed pixels by color, then send batches of XDrawPoints of each color. In X11 it is just as expensive to change the foreground color as to draw one dot (since all the overhead is sending the command), but you could efficiently draw a lot of dots of the same color with XDrawPoints, so it was worth it to sort the pixels by color and then draw them in a few same-colored batches, instead of switching colors between each pixel you draw. I disabled that crazy code for the OLPC port since it was always running locally and XPutImage would always always use the shared memory extensio
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n, but in the days when you wanted to run remotely over a slow network, or the local server didn't support the shared memory extension, it was well worth doing all the work of comparing and sorting individual pixels to incrementally update the map! https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis/blob/master/micropol... (I'm sure that code used to work on old 8 bit displays, but for some reason I never bothered to figure out, it was buggy on the OLPC's 24 bit visual, so I #if'ed it out of its misery. That's X11 for you.) https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis/blob/master/micropol...
In X and NeWS history
DonHopkins·Feb 21, 2017
You're welcome, and thanks for checking out the code! Since releasing the X11/TCL/Tk version for OLPC, we've stripped out the user interface, cleaned up and refactored and doxygenated the city simulator engine code into C++, and wrapped it with SWIG so it plugs into Python and other scripting languages. It's not as "authentic", but it has more comments and is easier to read than the old C code: https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis/tree/master/Micropol... Here's a talk about it: HAR 2009 Lightning Talk Transcript: Constructionist Educational Open Source SimCity, by Don Hopkins http://micropolisonline.com/static/documentation/HAR2009Tran... I got hooked on computer games by playing Zork at MIT-DM, and it really blew my mind to finally be able to read the original Zork source code in MDL. Reading the source code takes you backstage behind
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the scenes of a world you visited years ago, like the Disney's Keys to the Kingdom Tour! https://github.com/itafroma/zork-mdl
In Development content accidentally shipped on a DOS CD-ROM game from 1993
DonHopkins·Feb 21, 2017
It's a good idea not to just keep a copy of the source code stashed away somewhere, but also any contracts relating to the rights to the code. In the early 90's, DUX Software licensed the rights to port SimCity to Unix from Maxis. Then DUX made a contract with me to do the work. I kept a copy of my contract with DUX, the original floppies they gave me with the original PC and Mac source code, as well as versions of the source code I ported to Unix. Years later I got a job working for Maxis on The Sims. Before we shipped it, EA bought Maxis, so a lot of people were let go, projects were canceled, physical and digital files were shuffled around, and institutional knowledge was lost. After we shipped The Sims but just before I left EA, on a fluke, I asked a Maxis old-timer if he had any idea if the contract between Maxis and DUX for SimCity
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still existed, and where it might be. As you would expect, it was in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard." ;( So I waited late into the night for the leopard to fall asleep, made a photocopy of it, then returned the original to its hiding place. ;) Several years later, John Gilmore suggested we persuade EA to relicense the SimCity source code under GPLv3, so it could be shipped with the OLPC. Of course nobody in EA Management knew where the source code was or if it even still existed, but fortunately I still had my copy. And of course nobody at EA Legal even knew if EA owned the rights to the changes I'd made (Maxis had gotten into some pretty terrible SimCity licensing contracts in the past). But fortunately I'd kept a copy of the contract between myself and DUX, and the contract between DUX and Maxis, proving its provenance, which clearly stated that DUX's rights expired after 10 years, after which the rights to all the modifications I made went back to Maxis (and thus were inherited by EA). Once all that was cleared up, the most important factor was that EA deputized someone on the inside to shepherd the project through the various stages of approval, relicensing, development and QA. Otherwise it would have died on the vine, since everybody in a big company, no matter how well intentioned, is always 500% busy doing their own stuff and can't be distracted by something that doesn't affect the bottom line. It finally made it through both EA Legal and QA, and we released the SimCity source code and binary for the OLPC under GPLv3! https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis/tree/master/micropol...
In Development content accidentally shipped on a DOS CD-ROM game from 1993

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