alt.hn

5/24/2026 at 12:30:50 AM

Wake up! 16b

 https://hellmood.111mb.de/wake_up_16b_writeup.html

by MaximilianEmel

5/24/2026 at 5:59:31 AM

This sent me on a one hour long rabbit hole that ended with two guys building a Sierpinski triangle with recursive PowerPoint presentations

https://youtu.be/b-Fa6HtvGtQ?si=LpQszgA9_K-m3V3-

by tedggh

5/24/2026 at 6:18:23 AM

Thank you for that. Refreshing! :)

by wuschel

5/24/2026 at 1:29:45 AM

Some other time, I really thought that a 32 byte demo I saw is the limit of how small the binary can get and still look good.

That other demo didn't even have sound.

This is hell of a good work. A masterpiece to retire after. (or more realistically, chase it on other architectures)

by 3form

5/24/2026 at 6:48:45 AM

One of the linked demos, "rainbow surf", got me hypnotized. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKLhH_ANwIc

by namanyayg

5/24/2026 at 11:07:51 AM

Author of "wake up" here. Yes, that one reactivated me again. We thought (as size coding community) that we found every cellular automaton trick years ago, but then Plex came around and showed us otherwise ♥

by HellMood

5/24/2026 at 1:16:35 AM

Definitely thought this was a 16b parameter llm, not a 16 byte demo.

by kennywinker

5/24/2026 at 2:04:19 AM

Same! This is way cooler tho!

by msikora

5/24/2026 at 2:17:14 AM

I'm really impressed. Those are the things that made me love programming and computing. It's all so beautiful, it's TRULY art. It's a shame that in the industry we don't usually have the opportunities to make something like that, with AIs and all that...

by hei-lima

5/24/2026 at 6:03:53 AM

If this was made in Electron it would probably be a 300MB download and around 1GB of RAM.

by jonhohle

5/24/2026 at 2:24:16 PM

I swear watching this kind of projects occasionally is the only thing keeping me from dropping tech and going to work as a mailman or something.

by torben-friis

5/24/2026 at 7:47:25 AM

i can barely accept this is possible

by __del__

5/24/2026 at 12:51:53 PM

There are only 2^128 of such demos. How much of those are valid DOS programs? If we narrow it down to ones that generate both video and sound, I guess there are much less, which should motivate more people to try and find one :)

by smokel

5/24/2026 at 1:24:36 PM

2^128 is still a huuuuuge space.

by nojvek

5/24/2026 at 10:58:17 AM

Makes me wonder how many bytes the shortest possible Mandelbrot implementation would need.

by mg

5/24/2026 at 11:05:49 AM

Author of "wakeup" here. You would would need between 32 and 64 bytes. I have something that almost looks like one in 32 but it's not published yet ;)

by HellMood

5/24/2026 at 10:56:46 AM

I did NOT expect this 16 bytes demo to also have sound! What an outstanding piece of art.

by sph

5/24/2026 at 2:34:45 PM

Did not work on PCEM for some reason.

by Dwedit

5/24/2026 at 4:39:16 AM

i'll upvote this each time it's submitted

by electroglyph

5/24/2026 at 4:36:40 PM

16 bytes equals immediate “black magic” and “it’s a witch”. I get it in the abstract - generative art and CAs and fractals have infinite depth. But this is madness. I love it so much

by selfsimilar

5/24/2026 at 2:41:12 PM

that's crazy. level to which i'm striving haha

by nzhumasseiit

5/24/2026 at 8:36:03 AM

love the sign "This text is handwritten" at the bottom, that's awesome

by immanuwell

5/24/2026 at 1:37:56 AM

This is absolutely obscene. I am floored. Sweet hack.

by sneak

5/24/2026 at 3:26:21 AM

[flagged]

by xuzhenpeng

5/24/2026 at 6:05:47 AM

[dead]

by vladsiu

5/24/2026 at 9:47:05 AM

But big model is really better

by coffeeking001