Skip to content
Nicola Sabaini
Nicola Sabaini

// PROFILE

Nicola Sabaini

I have been writing software since the machine itself was the limit. Now I pick the limit myself: an operating system in half a megabyte, a wargame with AI inside, a radio station that hosts itself.

About

01

Projects

All projects

  1. 01 Game

    A game of ExaWar in progress: the hex grid with units deployed, the resource panel and the turn bar

    ExaWar

    Turn-based strategy on a hex grid, written in Python. Five resources, twelve technologies, fourteen missions, multiplayer on an authoritative server. Free, and finished.

    Status
    Released
    Year
    2025
    Language
    Python 3.12
    Graphics
    Pygame · NumPy
    Code
    ~133k lines
    Tests
    1383
    Languages
    5
    Site

  2. 02 Radio

    Radio Index: a vinyl record, the ON AIR indicator and the five languages the DJ announces in

    Radio Index

    An online station broadcasting around the clock, hosted by an artificial DJ that mixes live and announces in five languages. Embeddable player, public API, and it plays on TuneIn, Alexa, CarPlay and Android Auto.

    Status
    In development
    Year
    2026
    Broadcast
    24/7
    Host
    Artificial DJ
    Languages
    5
    API
    /api/now-playing
    Site

  3. 03 System

    ANIMA, the offline assistant of NucleoOS, open in the browser shell served by the Cardputer

    NucleoOS

    An operating system for the M5Stack Cardputer: 512 KB of RAM, no PSRAM, and on top of it an offline AI assistant, a bilingual voice and a desktop-class shell served by the device.

    Status
    In development
    Year
    2026
    SoC
    ESP32-S3
    RAM
    512 KB, no PSRAM
    Stack
    C · ESP-IDF · WASM
    Source

  4. 04 System

    The LVGL launcher of NucleoOS-P4 on the seven-inch panel: app grid, dock and system bar

    NucleoOS-P4

    The same idea on serious hardware: ESP32-P4, a seven-inch touchscreen, an LVGL launcher, native and WASM apps, offline speech synthesis in five languages.

    Status
    In development
    Year
    2026
    SoC
    ESP32-P4 + C6
    Display
    7" 1024×600
    Stack
    C++23 · LVGL 9
    Apps
    Native · WASM
    Source

  5. 05 Engine

    Malonno Survivors, Formis scene: the list of objects to find, the hints, the timer and the score

    HiddenIndexEngine

    An engine and visual editor for hidden-object games. One project, three targets: Windows, web and Android. With a scatterer that understands what camouflage means.

    Status
    In development
    Year
    2026
    Language
    Python 3.12
    Targets
    Windows · Web · Android
    Catalogue
    1600+ objects
    Languages
    5
    Source

  6. 06 Book

    The cover of 512 KILOBYTE: a grid of 512 memory cells on a dark green ground, in gold the eighteen that stay free

    512 KILOBYTE

    The story and the rules of an impossible operating system. How NucleoOS came to exist on a chip with no PSRAM, told by the machine that worked on it alongside him.

    Status
    Published
    Year
    2026
    Language
    Italian
    Structure
    16 chapters · 5 appendices
    Length
    ~30,000 words
    Where
    Amazon.it
    Amazon.it

  7. 07 Music

    Indecenti

    The music project. Soundtrack to ExaWar, and in rotation on Radio Index.

    Status
    Active
    Year
    2026
    Where
    Spotify · YouTube
    Also in
    ExaWar · Radio Index
    Spotify YouTube

02

Latest writing

All writing

  1. A constraint is a specification

    The cover of 512 KILOBYTE shows 512 memory cells, eighteen of them still free. It is not a metaphor. It is a readout.

    3 min read

  2. OpenClaw is not a coding agent

    I installed it expecting a rival to Claude Code. It is a different thing, and once you see what it is, it becomes useful: the local model, reachable from Telegram.

    4 min read

  3. On eight gigabytes of VRAM, model size is not the number that matters

    A dense 27B runs at 2.5 tokens per second. A 35-billion MoE, on the same card, does thirty. The difference is not size.

    4 min read