This computer built inside of Minecraft can run Tetris and Snake

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We’ve seen no end of cool things made inside Minecraft over the years, but this is seriously impressive. YouTuber sammyuri spent the better part of a year creating a CPU inside the game, and a way to create software to run on it.

The simulated 8-bit processor runs at a sedate 1Hz clock speed; and has 256 bytes of RAM. Not exactly a speed demon or anywhere near the CPU in your computer right now, but that’s enough to run simple programs. Sammyuri calls it the Computational Humongous Unconvential Number and Graphics Unit, or CHUNGUS 2 for short.

Instead of moving electrons around, as in a traditional CPU, Minecraft CPUs use the physics engine of the game to simulate them. It’s a mechanical representation of a CPU, which runs in the game, which is running on your traditional CPU. It’s very meta and very, very cool.

A CPU without anything to run would be technically cool, but one that can actually play games? Sweetness.

Sammyuri hooked his CPU up to a 32×32 simulated Minecraft screen, which can play games like Snake, Tetris, and even do your maths homework. It’s all controlled by a controller that the player jumps on to press the buttons.

The other ridiculous thing? Instead of running off external code, the games are physically built in Minecraft. If this was built in reality to Minecraft’s scale, the CPU would be around the size of a cruise ship, with games about the size of a freight train. Whew.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.