alt Hacker News> The original SimCity for example lists Intel’s 386SX as the CPU in it’s system requirements.
Not sure where that comes from. The original release box art [1] says it will work on any PC with 512KB of ram. So that's an 8088 running at just 4.77 MHz.
But that's far from the lowest spec port of the game. The Commodore 64 version might have been missing quite a few features (like stadiums, police/fire stations and railways), but the main city simulation loop was there in just 64KB of ram and a 1MHz 6502.
And the BBC Micro/Acorn Election port was even more impressive. Had basically all the features of the full Amiga/PC/Mac version, only missing Music/Sound/Animation. With a 2Mhz 6502 (or 1Mhz on the Election) and just 32KB of ram.
[1] https://images.launchbox-app.com/79861ce4-75ea-46dd-b46e-521...
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The original release was for Amiga and Mac. The C64 version followed around the same time as the PC version, though apparently the C64 version was the original.
C64 was not a port. The C64 version is the original.
I was running Sim City 2000 inside Win 3.1 on an 386 with 33MHz (I had 16MB of ram though). But it was virtually unplayable.
And I was expecting a lot more detail from the OP article considering it made the HN front page, but it pretty much comes down to, the game works on a 16-frame cycle, where 1 cycle it may handle crime stuff, another frame handles fire and disaster stuff, etc. No more details about what happens within 1 of those frames, or anything else, beyond 5 cycle function names. And the source is at https://www.donhopkins.com/home/micropolis/