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Tiny C Compiler

https://bellard.org/tcc/
85•guerrilla•2h ago•35 comments

SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes

https://xorvoid.com/sectorc.html
172•valyala•6h ago•30 comments

The silent death of Good Code

https://amit.prasad.me/blog/rip-good-code
9•amitprasad•1h ago•0 comments

Speed up responses with fast mode

https://code.claude.com/docs/en/fast-mode
105•surprisetalk•6h ago•107 comments

Brookhaven Lab's RHIC concludes 25-year run with final collisions

https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/brookhaven-labs-rhic-concludes-25-year-run-with-final-collis...
40•gnufx•5h ago•43 comments

The F Word

http://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2026/02/friction.html
92•zdw•3d ago•44 comments

Software factories and the agentic moment

https://factory.strongdm.ai/
126•mellosouls•9h ago•264 comments

OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of Civilization III

https://openciv3.org/
875•klaussilveira•1d ago•268 comments

You Are Here

https://brooker.co.za/blog/2026/02/07/you-are-here.html
59•mltvc•2h ago•71 comments

Hoot: Scheme on WebAssembly

https://www.spritely.institute/hoot/
164•AlexeyBrin•12h ago•29 comments

Stories from 25 Years of Software Development

https://susam.net/twenty-five-years-of-computing.html
124•vinhnx•9h ago•15 comments

FDA intends to take action against non-FDA-approved GLP-1 drugs

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-intends-take-action-against-non-fda-appro...
53•randycupertino•2h ago•52 comments

First Proof

https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.05192
90•samasblack•9h ago•62 comments

Al Lowe on model trains, funny deaths and working with Disney

https://spillhistorie.no/2026/02/06/interview-with-sierra-veteran-al-lowe/
79•thelok•8h ago•16 comments

Vocal Guide – belt sing without killing yourself

https://jesperordrup.github.io/vocal-guide/
260•jesperordrup•16h ago•84 comments

Show HN: A luma dependent chroma compression algorithm (image compression)

https://www.bitsnbites.eu/a-spatial-domain-variable-block-size-luma-dependent-chroma-compression-...
25•mbitsnbites•3d ago•2 comments

Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

https://rhodesmill.org/brandon/2009/commands-with-comma/
545•theblazehen•3d ago•201 comments

Show HN: Browser based state machine simulator and visualizer

https://svylabs.github.io/smac-viz/
7•sridhar87•4d ago•3 comments

Show HN: I saw this cool navigation reveal, so I made a simple HTML+CSS version

https://github.com/Momciloo/fun-with-clip-path
46•momciloo•6h ago•9 comments

I write games in C (yes, C) (2016)

https://jonathanwhiting.com/writing/blog/games_in_c/
158•valyala•6h ago•143 comments

The AI boom is causing shortages everywhere else

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/02/07/ai-spending-economy-shortages/
232•1vuio0pswjnm7•13h ago•371 comments

Selection rather than prediction

https://voratiq.com/blog/selection-rather-than-prediction/
22•languid-photic•4d ago•6 comments

Microsoft account bugs locked me out of Notepad – Are thin clients ruining PCs?

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/windows-locked-me-out-of-notepad-is-the-thin-...
68•josephcsible•4h ago•94 comments

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback

https://rlhfbook.com/
105•onurkanbkrc•11h ago•5 comments

Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production

https://arcadeblogger.com/2026/02/02/unseen-footage-of-atari-battlezone-cabinet-production/
135•videotopia•4d ago•43 comments

Coding agents have replaced every framework I used

https://blog.alaindichiappari.dev/p/software-engineering-is-back
295•alainrk•11h ago•469 comments

72M Points of Interest

https://tech.marksblogg.com/overture-places-pois.html
46•marklit•5d ago•6 comments

A Fresh Look at IBM 3270 Information Display System

https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/a-fresh-look-at-ibm-3270-information-display-system
55•rbanffy•4d ago•15 comments

France's homegrown open source online office suite

https://github.com/suitenumerique
678•nar001•10h ago•292 comments

Show HN: Kappal – CLI to Run Docker Compose YML on Kubernetes for Local Dev

https://github.com/sandys/kappal
44•sandGorgon•2d ago•19 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•9mo ago

Comments

thechao•9mo ago
I've always wanted to build (distinct) mechanical computers out of the following kinds of elements:

1. Spur-gear differential; and,

2. Shishi-odoshi.

Both of these are saturating mechanical devices that can be used to build NAND gates; the latter, I think, would be very pleasing, if exceedingly slow.

For the spur-gear differential, you'd need to up-scale the output by a factor of 2 (since the output is half-speed), and use a locking wedge to build a one-way gear out of one of the spur-gear differentials. However, it has the nice property that the logic is made entirely out of a single element: the spur-gear differential.

Similarly, for the shishi-odoshi: you're going to have to do a bit of analysis (drilling a hole in the bottom part of the bamboo ladle), to figure out the in-flow and out-flow to build the basic AND gate, and then balancing out the NOT gate, to build your basic NAND. This is, obviously, very finicky; but, I supposed, that'd be quite a bit of the charm of a Zen computer garden?

hnlmorg•9mo ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•9mo ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•9mo ago
Has any computer been built out of spur-gear differentials? Like maybe some sort of adder circuit, not necessarily a full instruction executing computer. The only uses I could find was what seems to me like the differentials being part of some sort of analogue computer.
thechao•9mo ago
Spur gear differentials are naturally adders (with carry!); so, traditionally they've only ever been used for analogue logic. They're overly complicated for digital logic: you need two spur gears to build a single gate (NAND) to perform a single binary operation. If you want any sort of reasonable lash characteristics you're going to need ~60 teeth. At that point, two 60 teeth spur gears give you a 3600-valued adder. That'd take something like 300+ spur gears in binary: it just doesn't make any damn sense.

I think the last time I looked at this, if I used the cast spur gears available I needed a staged approach to "start" the computer and a 1100 hp motor to run it.

rightbyte•9mo ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

Oh, ye that sounds impractical. A really big truck engine more or less.

thechao•9mo ago
Convincing Mrs. thechao that we needed to drop 80000$ on a blown V8 to build a 4b 3 function calculator didn't workout, BTW.
rightbyte•9mo ago
Well I want to be on your side but I think one need to keep the dreams not within grasp but at least in sight.
jcgrillo•9mo ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem
byronknoll•9mo ago
I built some logic gates using water and a 3D printed "seesaw" that tilts to the left or right: https://byronknoll.blogspot.com/2022/06/water-computer.html
thechao•9mo ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•9mo ago
the shishi-odoshu seems like the more promising avenue. The key question in mechanical computing is never designing gates, its designing power amplifiers.
eccentricwind•9mo ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•9mo ago
I just smile hearing the term "Millihertz Computer". I'd love it if building and designing mechanical and analog computers grew as a hobby/educational activity as I find them both fascinating and somehow satisfying.

Also, this 1950s Naval Training film explaining the fundamentals of how mechanical fire control computers work to solve complex problems is excellent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4

256_•9mo ago
I was incredibly surprised to find that this actually is a computer. Normally when you hear about a "computer" constructed in an unusual medium, it turns out to just be a binary adder or an analogue computer. I've learned to expect disappointment.
ryukoposting•9mo ago
About 8 years ago I visited TU Chemnitz and they had a lab making similar things to this. It wasn't clear to me what the goal was, but it was very cool nonetheless.
ogogmad•9mo ago
Is anyone going to produce a proof-of-concept Analytical Engine?

Will robots (which will hopefully soon be available) be able to do it?

tenthirtyam•9mo ago
This brings to mind two stories: Exhalation by Ted Chiang (short story), and the Three Body Problem (specifically the human computer) by Cixin Liu (novel length).

Exhalation really gets me thinking about what it means to be sentient & self-aware. If the neurons in our brains could, even in theory, be simulated by logic gates then, equally in theory, a Turing machine could be sentient. I can even imagine a bunch of rocks being sentient: https://xkcd.com/505/