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

https://openciv3.org/
592•klaussilveira•11h ago•176 comments

The Waymo World Model

https://waymo.com/blog/2026/02/the-waymo-world-model-a-new-frontier-for-autonomous-driving-simula...
901•xnx•17h ago•545 comments

What Is Ruliology?

https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2026/01/what-is-ruliology/
22•helloplanets•4d ago•15 comments

How we made geo joins 400× faster with H3 indexes

https://floedb.ai/blog/how-we-made-geo-joins-400-faster-with-h3-indexes
95•matheusalmeida•1d ago•22 comments

Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production

https://arcadeblogger.com/2026/02/02/unseen-footage-of-atari-battlezone-cabinet-production/
28•videotopia•4d ago•0 comments

Show HN: Look Ma, No Linux: Shell, App Installer, Vi, Cc on ESP32-S3 / BreezyBox

https://github.com/valdanylchuk/breezydemo
203•isitcontent•11h ago•24 comments

Monty: A minimal, secure Python interpreter written in Rust for use by AI

https://github.com/pydantic/monty
199•dmpetrov•12h ago•91 comments

Show HN: I spent 4 years building a UI design tool with only the features I use

https://vecti.com
313•vecti•13h ago•137 comments

Microsoft open-sources LiteBox, a security-focused library OS

https://github.com/microsoft/litebox
353•aktau•18h ago•176 comments

Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/
355•ostacke•17h ago•92 comments

Hackers (1995) Animated Experience

https://hackers-1995.vercel.app/
459•todsacerdoti•19h ago•231 comments

Delimited Continuations vs. Lwt for Threads

https://mirageos.org/blog/delimcc-vs-lwt
23•romes•4d ago•3 comments

Dark Alley Mathematics

https://blog.szczepan.org/blog/three-points/
80•quibono•4d ago•18 comments

Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?

https://eljojo.github.io/rememory/
259•eljojo•14h ago•155 comments

Was Benoit Mandelbrot a hedgehog or a fox?

https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.01122
7•bikenaga•3d ago•1 comments

An Update on Heroku

https://www.heroku.com/blog/an-update-on-heroku/
392•lstoll•18h ago•266 comments

PC Floppy Copy Protection: Vault Prolok

https://martypc.blogspot.com/2024/09/pc-floppy-copy-protection-vault-prolok.html
53•kmm•4d ago•3 comments

How to effectively write quality code with AI

https://heidenstedt.org/posts/2026/how-to-effectively-write-quality-code-with-ai/
234•i5heu•14h ago•178 comments

Introducing the Developer Knowledge API and MCP Server

https://developers.googleblog.com/introducing-the-developer-knowledge-api-and-mcp-server/
46•gfortaine•9h ago•13 comments

Why I Joined OpenAI

https://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2026-02-07/why-i-joined-openai.html
122•SerCe•7h ago•103 comments

I spent 5 years in DevOps – Solutions engineering gave me what I was missing

https://infisical.com/blog/devops-to-solutions-engineering
136•vmatsiiako•16h ago•60 comments

Show HN: R3forth, a ColorForth-inspired language with a tiny VM

https://github.com/phreda4/r3
68•phreda4•11h ago•12 comments

Understanding Neural Network, Visually

https://visualrambling.space/neural-network/
271•surprisetalk•3d ago•37 comments

Female Asian Elephant Calf Born at the Smithsonian National Zoo

https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/female-asian-elephant-calf-born-smithsonians-national-zoo-an...
25•gmays•6h ago•7 comments

I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams

https://kirkville.com/i-now-assume-that-all-ads-on-apple-news-are-scams/
1044•cdrnsf•21h ago•431 comments

Zlob.h 100% POSIX and glibc compatible globbing lib that is faste and better

https://github.com/dmtrKovalenko/zlob
13•neogoose•4h ago•9 comments

Learning from context is harder than we thought

https://hy.tencent.com/research/100025?langVersion=en
171•limoce•3d ago•91 comments

FORTH? Really!?

https://rescrv.net/w/2026/02/06/associative
60•rescrv•19h ago•22 comments

WebView performance significantly slower than PWA

https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40817676
27•denysonique•8h ago•5 comments

Show HN: Smooth CLI – Token-efficient browser for AI agents

https://docs.smooth.sh/cli/overview
89•antves•1d ago•66 comments
Open in hackernews

I wrote a Pong game in a 512-byte boot sector

https://akshatjoshi.com/i-wrote-a-pong-game-in-a-512-byte-boot-sector/
104•akshat666•2mo ago

Comments

akshat666•2mo ago
Built this as a personal challenge. No OS, no drivers — just x86 assembly and BIOS. 512 bytes exactly. Boots in QEMU.

Run it: nasm -f bin pong.asm -o boot.bin qemu-system-x86_64 boot.bin

GitHub: https://github.com/akshat666/-bootponggame

Tepix•2mo ago
Nice! So you wrote this three years ago according to the git timestamps?

You can add it to the list at https://gist.github.com/XlogicX/8204cf17c432cc2b968d138eb639... I think there are already at least two Pong game there.

akshat666•2mo ago
Yes, 3 yrs but still fun. I have seen some games in boot sector. Its super cool.
snvzz•2mo ago
Challenge: `cpu 8086` rather than `use16`.
akshat666•2mo ago
well well well
matsz•2mo ago
It's probably one of the best introductory projects to x86 assembly on bare metal.

More advanced than my attempt: https://github.com/mat-sz/pongloader

BTW: You could provide a live online demo using v86 - https://github.com/copy/v86

akshat666•2mo ago
That is a good demo right there. Any way to speed up the v86 on the browser ?
anthk•2mo ago
Now that I see this, I'd curious if something like Nethack 3.4.3 or Slashem could be rewritten in T3X0 and be playable under 286 machines:

https://t3x.org/t3x/0/

There's a working Rogue port for Minix2 under a 16 bit CPU (and for the Z Machine too, and GBA, and several others...), but I think even Hack 1.0.3 would be too big to fit under a 286 with 640k.

It would be a good start if Nethack 1.3d got working under CP/M for instance, rewritten with T3X0 and some ASM hacks for speeds...

fl7305•2mo ago
You could easily write a RISC-V CPU emulator for your older/smaller machines, and run the original Nethack code compiled to RISC-V.
anthk•2mo ago
Under a 286? At time-freezing speeds. Minix 2 under a homebrew 16 bit CPU already was so-so in usability:

https://homebrewcpu.com/

fl7305•2mo ago
I think it would be well enough for Nethack.

Would be interesting if even a Z80 could run Nethack in a CPU emulator.

anthk•2mo ago
Nethack 1.3c, maybe. The first release, I mean, the inmediate one after Hack 1.0.3 under BSD's. That with a lot of patience. Nethack 3.4.3... I doub't it even DOS could handle it with 640k and a 286.
joenot443•2mo ago
This is cool!

BTW I checked out your Github and tried the link to your personal site - looks like the www prefix isn't working.

www.akshatjoshi.com fails but akshatjoshi.com works. Gotta fix those A records!

akshat666•2mo ago
Thanks Joe! This should fixed now :)
kragen•2mo ago
Possibly relevant is hugi-compo round 3, the "Pong" compo: https://www.hugi.scene.org/compo/compoold.htm#compo3

I spent three days disassembling Guillermo Sais's 142-byte winner, which was challenging to understand. My notes may be of interest; they are in gsais-pong.md in http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/pavnotes2.git/

I hope this is not interpreted as any kind of criticism. I would much rather be responsible for maintaining Joshi's code than Sais's. But I suspect that most people who are interested in either work will be interested in the other.

akshat666•2mo ago
This is gold. so much to learn from this . Interesting to see how more limitations have curved the logic for each.
110111011110•2mo ago
always facinated by these.

some ideas: - could try to add another player. just need to map 4 more keys. IO should be fine doing it the same way (dont think itd need thread or whatever) the io is super fast in the qemu scenario.

- rather than have this in the MBR. make an MBR where you can select this sector to load as next sector and jump, maybe even with ability to return. *you can then expose other games too if ud ever be bothered for snake or minesweeper :D

just some tinkering ideas. cool project and hats off. its always more tricky than it looks these things!

akshat666•2mo ago
Very good suggestions. Making it a bit modular and flexible. Initial idea was to avoid any jump like a kernel etc. But very good points.
amiga386•2mo ago
"No operating system. [...] Just [...] BIOS". Hmm.

Out of interest, is there a difference in environment between running a COM executable for MS-DOS versus running a bootblock? I know there's the whole of MS-DOS, but a typical size-coded demo (http://www.sizecoding.org/wiki/DOS) will only use int 10h to switch mode, and that's it. Everything else is IO mapped (e.g. the keyboard) or memory mapped (e.g. screen memory). Could these equally run as a bootblock, and vice-versa?

One difference I know of is that DOS maintains an ever-increasing timer that it writes to 0:046C... is that available at bootblock execution time?

CrociDB•2mo ago
As far as I know yes, but with some minor changes, like the the position to be loaded in memory (`org 0x7c00` for bootloaders and I think `org 0x100` for DOS) and the fact that it needs to be exactly 512bytes to boot.
mg794613•2mo ago
Tomorrow it's my turn to pretend to have written this!
akshat666•2mo ago
Good luck with that :)