Pokémon at One Frame Per Second: The Bizarre Quest to Compute with Compass and Straightedge

Can you play Pokémon using nothing but the same tools that ancient mathematicians used to inscribe circles on clay? In a digital age obsessed with speed and power, one hacker’s eccentric project asks what happens when you swap silicon for geometry - and the answer is a surreal, slow-motion adventure through the roots of computation.

The ancient Greeks were obsessed with what could be created using only a compass and a straightedge - no measuring, no cheating. This obsession led to centuries of head-scratching over problems like “squaring the circle” - which, as it turns out, is impossible, thanks to the transcendental nature of pi. But what if these same strict rules became the basis for a computer?

Enter CasNum, a virtual environment developed by the hacker known as [0x0mer]. CasNum simulates the universe of compass-and-straightedge constructions: drawing lines through points, circles centered at specific coordinates, and finding intersections. On this geometric playground, numbers become points on a plane, and arithmetic is performed by cleverly connecting and bisecting these points. To add two numbers, for example, CasNum finds the midpoint and then doubles the distance from the origin - a visual, geometric take on what most of us do with a calculator.

But the experiment doesn’t stop at arithmetic. In a mind-bending twist, [0x0mer] modified a Game Boy emulator so that its Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) - the heart of all calculations - relied entirely on compass and straightedge logic. The result? Pokémon does run, but at a glacial pace: fifteen minutes to boot, and one frame of gameplay per second, even after heavy optimization. The performance is more a proof of concept than a practical gaming rig, but the technical achievement is undeniable.

The project is a playful reminder of how the rules of ancient geometry foreshadowed the logic gates and operations of modern computers. While a physical compass and straightedge offer analog, continuous values, the digital simulation makes everything discrete - mirroring the binary world of computing, but with a classical twist.

As we chase ever-faster processors and ever-smoother gameplay, CasNum’s Pokémon experiment offers a philosophical detour: sometimes, the slowest path is the one that teaches us the most about how computation - and, perhaps, creativity itself - really works.

WIKICROOK

• Transcendental Number: A transcendental number cannot be the solution to any polynomial equation with rational coefficients. Examples include pi and e, vital in cryptography.
• Compass and Straightedge: Compass and straightedge are classic geometric tools, sometimes used in cybersecurity as analogies for simple, fundamental, and transparent problem-solving methods.
• Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU): An ALU is a CPU component that handles arithmetic and logical operations, essential for computer processing and relevant in cybersecurity analysis.
• Emulator: An emulator is software that lets a computer mimic another system, allowing users to run programs or games made for different hardware.
• Analog Computer: An analog computer processes data using continuously variable physical quantities, unlike digital computers, which operate with discrete values. Used mainly before digital era.