Hacker News: bananaboy

New comment by bananaboy in "Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser"

bananaboy — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 21:47:44 +0000

What a weird argument, I can't believe people say that sort of thing and mean it sincerely. Compilers and assemblers and linkers and books are not the same as using AI. They're not just both tools and equivalent. One is using your brain power to gain knowledge and learn how things work. The other is asking someone to make the thing for you. But I don't think we'll agree on anything here.

New comment by bananaboy in "Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser"

bananaboy — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 21:43:30 +0000

This isn't about a chess pro competing against a machine, this is about someone showing up and saying they're going to enter the competition but instead they run a chess program, and claim that they played against the chess pro and beat them.

New comment by bananaboy in "Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser"

bananaboy — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 11:50:25 +0000

Yes! Personally I think that's a much more interesting homage.

New comment by bananaboy in "Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser"

bananaboy — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 11:49:57 +0000

I would just run it on my 386 with real CRT anyway haha

New comment by bananaboy in "Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser"

bananaboy — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 10:42:47 +0000

Sure. I don't think I've ever had an LCD monitor that supports 70hz at a useful resolution though. My current monitors (native resolution 2560x1440) only seem to support it at 1024x768!

New comment by bananaboy in "Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser"

bananaboy — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 10:39:11 +0000

Ah yeah true, no I don't think you're misunderstanding. Actually sorry I misspoke - what I've seen in the game re/decomp projects is that the binary gets turned into a direct C implementation of the instruction stream, and it's basically a sort of emulation with CPU/memory state and emulation of whatever hardware it might need to talk to.

New comment by bananaboy in "Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser"

bananaboy — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 10:14:11 +0000

Second Reality runs in real mode, and doesn't use XMS or EMS so it runs in 640kb!

New comment by bananaboy in "Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser"

bananaboy — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 10:07:29 +0000

I find it hard to congratulate someone on a project when they say Claude or whatever did it for them. It just feels so insincere. I myself wouldn't feel good getting compliments about something that I prompted into existence.

New comment by bananaboy in "Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser"

bananaboy — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 10:05:59 +0000

I feel the same, it sucks. All you can do is carve out a space for yourself doing the things you enjoy, and don't let the AI grifters tell you that AI is the only way and everyone else is "cooked", no one will be writing things by hand, etc etc. God that rhetoric is depressing.

I write demos and games as a hobby predominantly for MS-DOS and machines ranging from the 386 up to the Pentium (soon to add 8088/286 to that list) as well as old consoles like the Sega Master System and other random platforms (like ARM-based kids toys like the Leapster Explorer).

Right now I'm working on an EGA production. I could just get an AI to generate a lot of the code for me or give me all the answers, but instead, I have my Programmer's Guide to the EGA/VGA/SVGA by Ferraro and another reference open on my desk trying to understand the CRTC so I can create a custom video mode. I live for this stuff and want to fully understand what's going on in the hardware. I like the creative aspects of making demos and games but I also like the technical aspects, and understanding the platform and the deep details.

When I spend too much time reading HN or X and see too much of the AI stuff, it really bums me out, so I have to detox by unfollowing/ignoring and getting back to my projects.

New comment by bananaboy in "Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser"

bananaboy — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 09:55:20 +0000

Uh, many people. There are plenty of demo parties with retro categories in the compos, and plenty of people still interested in writing their own code for those platforms.

New comment by bananaboy in "Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser"

bananaboy — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 09:54:05 +0000

That's correct. Personally as an MS-DOS retro enthusiast and programmer I don't know how anyone could call XP and DOS synonymous!

New comment by bananaboy in "Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser"

bananaboy — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 09:52:49 +0000

I mean even these browser ports aren't at the native framerate. The native framerate for these demos was 70hz as they were all designed for VGA video modes.

New comment by bananaboy in "Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser"

bananaboy — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 09:51:15 +0000

> What's the advantage of this approach vs cycle-accurate emulation? (I'd guess it can go faster, due to compiler optimization?)

I don't think anyone is doing it this way because they chose to do it this way. All the AI decomp/recomp projects I've seen recently have done it this way. It just seems an easy way to have an AI brute force "port" something.

New comment by bananaboy in "God of War on PSP, recompiled to WebAssembly and running in the browser"

bananaboy — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 05:28:58 +0000

Yeah this seems to be the case in all of the recent “recomp” projects I’ve seen popping up lately. They turn it into c++ but it’s not what you’d imagine when you think of decompiling - it’s basically assembly-like writing to a machine/cpu state object representing memory/registers etc. And then they also call it a native port to boot!

New comment by bananaboy in "Dosbox-x OS-free version because of California age verification laws"

bananaboy — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 02:44:43 +0000

I had no idea this was a thing (not living in California or indeed the US). This seems absurd that they have to do this!

Dosbox-x OS-free version because of California age verification laws

bananaboy — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 02:44:18 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/joncampbell123/dosbox-x/issues/6337

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50001375

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

New comment by bananaboy in "AnyPS5: Port PS5 binaries to PC without emulation (87% system libraries mapped)"

bananaboy — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 02:01:16 +0000

They might be technically interesting problems to solve but these days they're just using AI to solve them so they aren't really learning anything about those interesting problems.

New comment by bananaboy in "Vibecoding Photoshop: Time and pressure"

bananaboy — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 01:06:19 +0000

Photopea is also not vibecoded so I don't know why the author brought it up if they were trying to make a point about vibecoding your own slop.

New comment by bananaboy in "Photopea creator weighs in on Photosuite project"

bananaboy — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 03:31:26 +0000

Absolutely. There’s a lot of this going around on twitter too with all the game reverse engineering with all the AI grifters claiming games are all open source now etc. Yeah right, I don’t think they understand the concept of open source or copyright!

New comment by bananaboy in "Photopea creator weighs in on Photosuite project"

bananaboy — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 03:28:22 +0000

They posted one new issue with proof that you copied their code, which you deleted and closed. I’d hardly call that spamming.