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hayksaakian
This definitely seems like more of a "for fun" project, but it's a fun challenge to think about a practical situation where this is the best solution.
chrisco255
It's fun, sure but no doubt canvas is the way to go for the same effect at less memory overhead.
jonathanlydall
Indeed. Back in about 2010 or so when I made a Minecraft Redstone Simulator[1], I initially prototyped using a <table> for the display of the "grid".

Just making the cells change colour as a mouse was clicked and dragged over the cells (to draw) was very laggy. After which I switched to canvas which worked really well.

At the time I was a very inexperienced developer but looking back now it was very obvious a table with cell approach wouldn't be performant.

[1]: https://mordritch.com/mc_rss/

chii
> think about a practical situation where this is the best solution.

could be used as a captcha style roadblock!

matheusmoreira
God help us all.
shreddit
To continue please check all checkboxes to display the mona lisa
hadlock
Not sure if lynx supports check boxes, but might be a way to include native animated graphics where ascii art is merely static
djxfade
Does Lynx support javascript?
wlkr
No, Lynx doesn't support JavaScript. I think to get something close you'd have to do a page refresh (e.g. <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="1">) and set the check box states-server side to emulate 'animation' in this way.
agys
“Render anything as HTML checkboxes” is the best headline!
hkdobrev
Where is Minesweeper example? :-D
p4bl0
That would be hard to do. Checkboxes can only be in two distinct states.
zabzonk
Three, if you count disabled.
Wowfunhappy
And partial, no? So four states.
p4bl0
Right. But that still isn't enough for minesweeper, where a cell can be: covered, marked, uncovered with no mines next to it, uncovered with one mine next to it, uncovered with two mines next to it… etc until uncovered with eight mines next to it.

So except if you limit the game to having no cells with more then one neighbors with a mine, it won't work.

Wowfunhappy
What I'd do:

• All squares start off as unchecked boxes.

• Marked squares are partially-checked boxes.

• Revealed bombs (e.g. player lost, show the board) are fully checked.

• Uncovered squares are deleted, and a number is placed in the space as simple text.

You could absolutely argue the last point is cheating, but, meh, I feel it's within the spirit of the idea.

(Undecided on whether to use disabled checkboxes to mark the perimeter of the playing field; I'd have to try it and see what felt right.)

Zecc
We can go higher:

    <input type="checkbox" />
    <input type="checkbox" checked />
    <input type="checkbox" indeterminate />
    <input type="checkbox" disabled />
    <input type="checkbox" disabled checked />
    <input type="checkbox" disabled indeterminate />
hkdobrev
See the snake game on the website.
p4bl0
When I saw the link title on HN I immediately thought of the idea of implementing Conway's game of life using a grid of checkboxes. It is actually there. Neat!
bazhova
This would be good for a chip8 display
matthew_kuiash
I needed a good giggle and there it is! Thanks! I enjoyed that!
f0e4c2f7
I thought this was going to be an elaborate rant about how modern corporate life has become about checking boxes instead of doing actual work.

This is good too.

__MatrixMan__
I was thinking it was going to be about manual software testing.

Instead I spent a few minutes trying to navigate my bedroom by checkbox camera. It didn't go well, but kudos to the author just the same.

goddstream
Genius. How can any programmer be bored on a Sunday when there are things like this. What a time to be alive.
indymike
Was thinking it would be a memo about how soul crushing adding regulatory compliance to UIs is.
tempodox
Pixelation alone would be nothing new but these are stateful interactive pixels! Hilariously crazy.
DonHopkins
Is this available as a three.js renderer?
ape4
Looking at the code, it seems weird that each <input type=checkbox> has style="..." in it. Why not use a class or .input[type=checkbox] {...}
JKCalhoun
"Don't you see, no one has ever done this before! I've got to do this! I've got to do this!"

With that last shout and a wild look in his eye he ran madly out of the lab, hurrying back to his office.

cf100clunk
Somewhere another madman plots an ncurses version for viewing in lynx.
Existenceblinks
What I appreciate is keyboard navigation on demos, from any demo to Marquee even gradually transition from previous to next one without refreshing the whole scene.
Wowfunhappy
This is cool, but I wish the Game of Life let you change the pattern by manually toggling check boxes with your mouse. Right now, if you pause the game and change which boxes are checked, they'll revert to the previous state once the game is resumed.