1.2M views · Apr 19, 2017 · 2:22 · 8 HN recommenders · 18 mentions · discussed 2017–2025
A Commodore 64 demo by Linus Akesson that fits video and music into 256 bytes, winning the Oldskool 4K Intro compo at Revision 2017. A technical write-up accompanies it.
Why Hacker News points people here: It is HN's favorite example of extreme code compression, a compelling song and visuals from a program smaller than a tweet.
“not only because it is 256 bytes, but because it is a compelling song too.”HN comment, 2018
“not only because it is 256 bytes, but because it is a compelling song too.”
Compelling song in only 256 bytes
I still play this video over and over, just for the song, not only because it is 256 bytes, but because it is a compelling song too.
“There's an amazing demo called 'A Mind Is Born'”
Whole demo is only 256 bytes
There's an amazing demo called 'A Mind Is Born': this video Amazing principally because the whole thing is 256 bytes: link I never meet anyone who has even heard of the demoscene, let alone come seen this particular work. I was at a film festival watching a programme of short films, one of which was the well-made AI-box escape romp 'Watch Room': link And similarly found my interface with my seat disrupted by the closing credits using the music from 'A Mind Is Born'. This being a festival, the director was there, so i could tell him how much i appreciated the reference!
“my favourite 256 byte demo is for the C64”
Astonishing music in a 256 byte C64 demo
Not MS-DOS, but my favourite 256 byte demo is for the C64: "A Mind Is Born", check it out: this video that music is astonishing.
“The craziest ever, to me, is the following in 256... bytes.”
256 bytes including music
> fwiw, this made me spend a few minutes in youtube looking at old c64 and apple and Atari demos. what people ended up doing with those devices - years after they were mainstream - is still crazy to me. The craziest ever, to me, is the following in 256... bytes. Bytes (including the music ofc, which is the whole point). this video
“Mind blowing stuff”
256-byte C64 demo with music
By now when I see "linusakesson.net" I upvote without reading, then I read TFA and watch the vid (or listen to the music in this case). I'm never disappointed. Speaking of which I plan to do something really cool: I've got a "time capsule" C64 (well C128 but close enough) and it still works. It's never been "polluted" by anything modern: no "gotek" SD reader, no nothing: just a real time capsule from the early to mid eighties. And I plan to encode, manually, the 256 bytes (yes, bytes) of linusakesson's "A mind is born" C64 demo. I'll then run it (with the C128 hooked to an old CRT, of course), thinking that technically I could have encoded and ran that in the eighties. Mind blowing stuff: this video
“Here's a winning demoscene production, 256 bytes, on a Commodore 64.”
Winning 256-byte C64 demo
Here's a winning demoscene production, 256 bytes, on a Commodore 64. this video Technical discussion here: link
“I really like 'A Mind is Born'”
256-byte demo built on LFSRs
I really like 'A Mind is Born' - this video The summary of it's development could be summarised with "It's LFSRs all the way down"
“You might enjoy watching the emergent behavior in the execution of this 256 byte program”
Emergent behavior from a 256 byte program
You might enjoy watching the emergent behavior in the execution of this 256 byte program - a mind is born [0]. [0] this video
“It's only 256 bytes, but can generate over 2 minutes of complex music and video.”
Demonstrates Kolmogorov complexity with 256 bytes of code
For a demonstration of Kolmogorov complexity, it's good to watch "A mind is born"[0] by lftkryo. It's only 256 bytes, but can generate over 2 minutes of complex music and video. Also, the name is appropriate for this topic :D [0] this video
“it's just nudged/selected random data”
Rich-looking structure from tiny nudged random data
> DNA is extremely important, but it makes no sense if [it is] not in a cell, in an organism, in an ecosystem. Other interactions are at play, and this application of algorithmic information cannot capture the extent of that complexity. It reminds me of demoscene, specifically "A mind is born"[1], 256-byte demo which "looks" complicated and with rich structure, but it's just nudged/selected random data. Author said that he played around with some random generated content until he found something nice. Just by itself that 256 bytes is still not enough to replicate behaviour, it must be run on hardware, which is like "environment" for DNA. Without several supporting chips which are easy to access, that code would mean nothing and would not generate such complexity. Moreover, those "patterns" in demo are patterns only because WE interpret them as meaningful. [1] this video
“you can write cool demos like this”
Example of cool demos written in assembly
Besides understanding better what your language of choice is doing under the hood (vaguely) you can write cool demos like this: this video
“Linus has some extreme coding cred in my book!”
Work by Linus Akesson on C64
I am fascinated by these IF engines for some reason. What sets the Dialog apart is, IMHO, the performance it gets on 6502 in combination with the Å-machine VM by the same author. It's a domain specific language + optimized compiler + runtime for a platform (C64) that hasn't been made for decades. There are some excellent Z-machine impls for C64, but basically anything using the Inform7 runtime (a bunch of convenience parsing and world tricks) runs like a dog. Dialog + Å-machines gets a respectable and growing amount of the way there but cutting out the middle man. Linus has some extreme coding cred in my book! link this video
“6 years later”
Realized 256-byte audiovisual demo with synced music
From article: > This would make it possible, for example, for a 256-byte demoscene production to have an interesting and varying audiovisual structure with a strong, inherent synchronization between the effects and the music. 6 years later: this video
“C64 Demo fame”
Known as the author's famous C64 demo
Execution of Minto’s Csárdás on a breadbin Commodore 64 by Linus Ákesson of “A Mind Is Born”[0] C64 Demo fame. [0]: this video
> and it is extremely complex and does much more Who's to say? The interesting bit in this discussion is why the code size is large, and looking in detail what the programs do would be a start. Of course, one could suppose that using a high-level language makes it easier to write code, hence, more code is going to be written. Or you or I could really conclude anything we want, if we're willing to pretend to know. It would be interesting to know, but that takes work to find out. And I'm a lazy bastard. PS. not to argue any more :), but I have checked the size of rsync 3.2.3 now, it's 51 Kloc of C code (including the 6300 loc of the included copy of zlib). You'd need to add a cryptographic library, a GUI library, and GUI code to make it a viable replacement for Dropbox, without comparing features. Git annex 8.20210223 is 70 Kloc of Haskell and 9100 loc of JavaScript, but it depends on Git to do its work, which (version 2.30.2) is 327 Kloc of C code and 225 Kloc of sh and Perl code. Thunar 4.16.8 is 73 Kloc of C code, sshfs is 4700 loc and fuse is 22 Kloc of C, openssh is 113 Kloc of C, so maybe you could build a Dropbox replacement in 212 Kloc of C without looking through the feature set. Maybe that's still 4-5 times smaller than the Dropbox client, but your number of 50 Kloc is again off by a factor of 4. :) (I guess one could say that the truth is "somewhere in the middle", looking at those number on a logarithmic scale...) I'm sure you could also come up with a much smaller
“manually input the 256 bytes making this insane C64 demo”
Commenter plans to hand-enter the 256-byte demo on a C128
During the first covid lockdown, I was by "chance" stuck in the home I grew up in. And I did found my old C128 in attic (which I was only ever using in C64 mode, except to copy disks). It's a time capsule C128 that hasn't been "polluted" by anything made in the last 33 years so (I switched to the Amiga in 1989 or so). So one day I plan to manually input the 256 bytes making this insane C64 demo (posted here on HN already), keeping my time capsule C128 intact: this video
“The 256 bytes that encode C64's `A mind is born' demo”
Example of extreme code size compression
The 256 bytes that encode C64's `A mind is born' demo this video or the `quad core' demo link should those techniques pack AI model simulator images for hexapod robotics down at the supervisor binary interface layer, do the demoscene folks get to work catergories in AI and Robotics for `new' competition?
“how is a mind born?”
> we should think more about what makes a 'mind'. Unrelated, but the first thing that came to me: how is a mind born? [0][1] [0] this video [1] link
