WriteUp: 16 Bytes of x86 that turn Matrix rain into sound • Hacker News Board

Re: WriteUp: 16 Bytes of x86 that turn Matrix rain into sound

#31

Post by briansm » Mon, May 18, 2026, 9:14 AM UTC

ObiKenobi wrote: post #29

My most favourite demo is "Freespin" which runs entirely on a floppy drive without a computer. Crazy stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zprSxCMlECA

My favorite is 'spongy', an underwater journey through a Menger-sponge fractal in 128 bytes:

https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=53871

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36BPql6Nl_U

I'm more impressed by the eerie beauty of it than the technical achievement, even if the code was orders of magnitude larger it would still be wonderful.

Re: WriteUp: 16 Bytes of x86 that turn Matrix rain into sound

#32

Post by HellMood » Mon, May 18, 2026, 9:33 AM UTC

briansm wrote: post #31

ObiKenobi wrote: post #29

My most favourite demo is "Freespin" which runs entirely on a floppy drive without a computer. Crazy stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zprSxCMlECA

My favorite is 'spongy', an underwater journey through a Menger-sponge fractal in 128 bytes: https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=53871 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36BPql6Nl_U I'm more impressed by the eerie beauty of it than the technical achievement, even if the code was orders of magnitude larger it would still be wonderful.

"Spongy" was one of my inspirations to try something similar in 64 bytes.

Of course it's not the same, but "flying through a 3D grayscale orthogonal structure" is actually possible in 64

https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=78044

Re: WriteUp: 16 Bytes of x86 that turn Matrix rain into sound

#33

Post by abrookewood » Mon, May 18, 2026, 10:06 AM UTC

ObiKenobi wrote: post #29

My most favourite demo is "Freespin" which runs entirely on a floppy drive without a computer. Crazy stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zprSxCMlECA

What. The. Actual. Fuck!

Apologies for the cursing, but that is the most bat shit insane demo I have ever seen. I'll just leave you with the top comment on the video: "Witches have been burnt for lesser sorcery"

Re: WriteUp: 16 Bytes of x86 that turn Matrix rain into sound

#34

Post by hpcgroup » Mon, May 18, 2026, 2:09 PM UTC

[flagged]

Re: WriteUp: 16 Bytes of x86 that turn Matrix rain into sound

#35

Post by userbinator » Tue, May 19, 2026, 3:22 AM UTC

ObiKenobi wrote: post #29

My most favourite demo is "Freespin" which runs entirely on a floppy drive without a computer. Crazy stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zprSxCMlECA

I'd never seen that demo before, but from your description I had a suspicion it would be a C64 floppy drive, which has the same CPU as the C64 itself and runs embedded firmware acting more like a file server:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_1541

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_DOS

Re: WriteUp: 16 Bytes of x86 that turn Matrix rain into sound

#36

Post by Dylan16807 » Sun, May 24, 2026, 4:45 AM UTC

abrookewood wrote: post #33

ObiKenobi wrote: post #29

My most favourite demo is "Freespin" which runs entirely on a floppy drive without a computer. Crazy stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zprSxCMlECA

What. The. Actual. Fuck! Apologies for the cursing, but that is the most bat shit insane demo I have ever seen. I'll just leave you with the top comment on the video: "Witches have been burnt for lesser sorcery"

In this case I'd say the batshit part is that the floppy drive has almost the same CPU as the C64 it starts attached to. 1MHz tied to raw I/O pins is powerful, no matter what it's inside.