Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser(treylorswift.github.io) |
Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser(treylorswift.github.io) |
> That recording is translated into C - the original instructions, one for one, with the exact cycle timing of the emulated machine.
What's the advantage of this approach vs cycle-accurate emulation? (I'd guess it can go faster, due to compiler optimization?)
> The result is checked against the emulator event for event: every interrupt, port access and frame at the same moment of emulated time.
It's funny how LLMs leak their test procedure docs into user-facing output.
You have to constantly fight so hard to not get this. And for the past few months it seems most people do not even care to remove it and have proper user facing docs
If the games had been for DOS, it would probably have made more sense to just run the original binaries in DOSBox-X or some other emulator. I think there is already some debug API that can be enabled. Or adding MCP or something similar to DOSBox(-X) would probably be a lot less work than to reimplement the games.
The entire point of the port was to add headless play for AI training. But porting the old interface and playing it in the browser was lots of fun. Can not upload that to GitHub, obviously.
The demoscene was all about human ingenuity getting the most out of the machine. It was about showing off how good your crew was at making things from nothing but their minds.
Now, it too, has been swallowed by the AI that is destroying this entire mode of being, the joy and creativity of writing code, of solving seemingly-impossible puzzles with ones mind.
My favorite creative and intellectual outlet is dying off and its killer is wearing its corpse as a costume.
It's really cool to be able to rewatch these demo, but the spirit in which they were created is somewhat lost.
Those demos from the '90s remind me of the incredible creativity and ingenuity of the human mind. Thanks for bringing them back to life and making them so effortlessly accessible.
We'll get unlimited frozen pizzas, but we'll kill off chefs in the process.
It's not a trade I'm feeling good about.