Hacker News: bananaboy

New comment by bananaboy in "Making Graphics Like it's 1993"

bananaboy — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 12:35:00 +0000

Yes, I played it at the time on both a 286 and a 386. You might be right, although you're describing an algorithm more like what Duke3d used rather than raycasting in that case. I was talking purely about raycasting. So it sounds like a misunderstanding on my part.

It's true that Carmack has said several times, including in the readme to the source release of Wolf3d [0], that a BSP-based renderer might be faster than raycasting. He used a BSP tree based renderer for the SNES port of Wolf3d because the CPU was even slower, so I suppose that answers it! There's also a note in the GEBB page 164 from Carmack where he says it was slower than "looping through a few long wall segments". [1]

Early alpha versions of DOOM used a sector-based rendering technique, maybe like what you're describing, which ultimately was too slow [2]][3]. Then Carmack switched to BSP trees after doing the Wolf3d SNES port.

I think it would be pretty interesting to implement the same game with both a raycasting approach and a BSP or Build-style portal/sector approach and compare performance on a 386. DOOM ran terribly on a 386 but it did a lot more than Wolf3d, so it's not a great comparison. Catacomb 3D didn't use raycasting (it used a wall span rendering techniqe) and ran better than Wolf3d on similar hardware, but it had a bunch of glitches. But Carmack says they were due to lack of experience rather than the technique itself.

Anyway thanks for challenging my assumptions. This'll go on my todo list!

[0] https://github.com/id-Software/wolf3d [1] https://fabiensanglard.net/b/gebbwolf3d.pdf [2] https://youtu.be/NnkCujnYNSo?t=1592 [3] https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Doom_rendering_engine

New comment by bananaboy in "Making Graphics Like it's 1993"

bananaboy — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 03:59:01 +0000

A grid of squares makes sense for the target hardware at the time though (286 or better CPU)

New comment by bananaboy in "Windows GOG DOS Games on M-Series Macs"

bananaboy — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 23:01:31 +0000

I wouldn’t be surprised if 7-zip can extract the files from the installer if the installer is not a custom thing.

New comment by bananaboy in "The four programming questions from my 1994 Microsoft internship interview (2023)"

bananaboy — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 10:49:10 +0000

CGA is even more nuanced than just two palettes. You can choose from three palettes, and each can be set to low intensity or high intensity, so you can effectively choose from six. On top of that, the background colour for each palette (colour 0 which defaults to black) can be set to any colour from the full CGA 16 colour palette! I wrote a sample program for a friend recently to demonstrate this https://github.com/samizzo/cgasample

New comment by bananaboy in "GTA 6 Developers Unionize"

bananaboy — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 02:37:43 +0000

Exactly! Armchair enthusiasts and gamers and such will talk about some game release and its "new engine" but throwing away the entire codebase is rarely a sensible choice financially speaking.

New comment by bananaboy in "GTA 6 Developers Unionize"

bananaboy — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 02:32:14 +0000

Very true!

New comment by bananaboy in "Voxel Space (2017)"

bananaboy — Sat, 30 May 2026 23:38:20 +0000

You might be thinking of unchained VGA modes but in unchained modes you want to draw columns because that means you only have to switch which memory plane is active four times instead of every four pixels, ie select plane 0, draw column 0, 4, 8, etc then select plane 1 and draw columns 1, 5, 9, etc etc

New comment by bananaboy in "Voxel Space (2017)"

bananaboy — Sat, 30 May 2026 23:32:41 +0000

It does render columns though. Maybe we are talking about different things but the algorithm is essentially: for x = 0 to 319 draw_vertical_line(x, height). The detail there though is whether you cast a ray for each column or do what this does and go from far plane to near plane drawing the columns.

New comment by bananaboy in "Voxel Space (2017)"

bananaboy — Sat, 30 May 2026 23:17:27 +0000

The 286 didnt have an integrated floating point unit so you would have been using a software floating point library that came with your compiler. That would have been very slow indeed!

New comment by bananaboy in "Voxel Space (2017)"

bananaboy — Sat, 30 May 2026 23:14:48 +0000

That looks really nice!

New comment by bananaboy in "GTA 6 Developers Unionize"

bananaboy — Fri, 29 May 2026 23:03:06 +0000

Exactly. There is a lot of ignorance in this thread. As if the only two roles are engine programmer and gameplay programmer where gameplay is just scripting. Nope. We have engineering teams dedicated to: UI, physics, rendering, streaming, automation, gameplay (people who write gameplay features that the game designers will access via script), build infra, pipeline (and pipeline is split up into people doing lighting/geometry tools vs tools that package up data for efficient runtime use), level editing tools, asset editing tools. I’m sure I’ve forgotten plenty. Then there are the QA teams, automation (not engineers but write test scripts etc), production, level designers, vfx artists, tech artists (almost programmers), character artists, 2d artists, prop artists, gameplay scripters. This is Activision but I know EA are similar and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that most AAA companies are also similar.

There’s a wide range of pay levels there.

New comment by bananaboy in "GTA 6 Developers Unionize"

bananaboy — Fri, 29 May 2026 22:49:51 +0000

It barely resembles id tech 3 at this point (I am an engine and pipeline programmer at Sledgehammer Games). There are very very few remnants of it in the codebase. I occasionally do some spelunking to see what’s left and these days it’s just the occasional comment and function names (although the content of the functions will have changed significantly).

New comment by bananaboy in "GTA 6 Developers Unionize"

bananaboy — Fri, 29 May 2026 22:44:41 +0000

It’s more nuanced than that. Programmers generally will be paid decently. Gameplay programmers aren’t really the bottom of the pecking order. That dubious honour usually falls to UI engineers. Other folks involved in development who often don’t get paid well and are usually involved in unions are QA, junior programmers, and junior artists. There are a lot more roles than just engine and gameplay programmer.

New comment by bananaboy in "GTA 6 Developers Unionize"

bananaboy — Fri, 29 May 2026 22:38:47 +0000

If you’re working for one of the big studios making blockbusters the bonuses can still be pretty good.

What it takes to preserve floppy disks

bananaboy — Fri, 29 May 2026 22:21:56 +0000

Article URL: https://spectrum.ieee.org/floppy-disk-data-preservation-archives

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48330086

Points: 16

# Comments: 0

New comment by bananaboy in "Sonny Rollins, jazz saxophonist, has died"

bananaboy — Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:47 +0000

Absolutely! Maybe also Jonathan Kreisberg for guitar.. oh and on piano how could I forget Benny Green! I kind of feel he's not as big as he should be. Another pianist who I really love and took a few lessons with in NYC is Bruce Barth, also sorely underappreciated.

New comment by bananaboy in "Sonny Rollins, jazz saxophonist, has died"

bananaboy — Wed, 27 May 2026 07:08:18 +0000

Depending on your definition, in jazz, I would say there are a few who might become/already are legends: Branford and Wynton Marsalis, Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Pat Metheny, John Scofield. Maybe also John Patitucci, Dave Weckl, Bill Charlap, Larry Goldings, Peter Bernstein, Bill Stewart, Brian Blade, Kenny Garrett, Kenny Barron, Bill Frisell. I tried to pick the bigger names who do a lot more touring internationally and who I think already have some wider visibility, rather than some of the (perhaps) lesser known players like Mike LeDonne, Chris Potter, Eric Alexander, Sam Yahel, Andy Gravish, David Hazeltine (who are all still phenomenal of course). I think Wynton and Branford, Mehldau, and McBride all have pretty visible profiles.

New comment by bananaboy in "Sonny Rollins, jazz saxophonist, has died"

bananaboy — Wed, 27 May 2026 03:44:18 +0000

Yeah I know what you mean! I’m so thankful we can still go see Ron Carter and Herbie Hancock.

New comment by bananaboy in "Sonny Rollins, Jazz's Saxophone Colossus and Greatest Improvisor, Dead at 95"

bananaboy — Wed, 27 May 2026 03:43:11 +0000

Oh crap I completely missed that! Boo!

New comment by bananaboy in "Sonny Rollins, jazz saxophonist, has died"

bananaboy — Wed, 27 May 2026 01:49:13 +0000

Sonny Rollins was probably the last great player from the bebop age though who was there at its birth, and probably the last master who played with Charlie Parker too!

Ron Carter and Herbie Hancock are still going strong of course, and still brilliant. George Coleman, Jack DeJohnette, and Dave Holland are all still playing to pick some other names at random.