Author of Blinkenlights here. I'm a professional amateur so I do everything for fun. I think it's fun to create command line Linux programs. I want to be able to share the programs I've made with other people. The browser provides an environment for running software that's safe and easy. The problem is that most existing solutions for running Linux programs in the browser require emulating the operating system too. So I built a program that implements the x86_64-linux abi, which is very small. That way when myself and others share the programs we've written, they'll load fast and download fast.
As you note browsers are already a capable platform, so a compact compatibility layer is good way to add support for linux binaries. ABI virtualization really deserves to be more popular as an alternative or complement to containers and VMs. Perhaps it hasn't caught on (besides Proton/WINE) because there isn't a semi-standard format/platform like docker or virtualbox.
Haven't multiple people on HN built simple direct GUI libraries that work natively and on wasm? It would be cool for apps and game binaries with (sound, graphics, networking, controller support...) to be portable across linux and web (and probably windows, macos, android, etc.) with a compact compatibility layer.
I've currently been focusing on making terminal user interfaces work well across personal computer, server, and browser platforms, because rich ANSI TTYs (like Blinkenlight's TUI) is a problem that's tractable for mostly one individual to solve really well. Doing the same thing with GUIs would require millions of dollars of resources and even then, it'd be unlikely to have a native look and feel.
TUIs are great and underappreciated in my opinion.
Another thing I wish were used more is character-mode graphics such as line-drawing, semigraphics, and various unicode symbols; I also wish more terminal emulators supported inline images - often I don't want to start up a new app just to plot something.
Agreed about native look and feel, but I don't think GUIs are intrinsically huge and intractable. Consider the various immediate mode GUIs posted on HN (Nuklear, Imgui, etc.) as well as the original Mac toolbox, which fit in 64K of ROM.
Thanks for the reply and for the interesting projects and posts!
