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- Hacker News
- Remarkably, sending this entire mixed-data byte directly to system port 61h, which historically manages various low-level motherboard controls, does not disrupt the system. In standard DOS environments and modern emulators, pushing these extra bits to the port is effectively harmless.
If anyone is curious what the other bits do and how the PC speaker really works:
https://fd.lod.bz/rbil/ports/keyboard/p0060006f.html#table-P...
https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/pc-speak-technical...
...and I wouldn't be surprised if some chipset put more hazardous functionality in those reserved bits.
by userbinator - Quite incredible. This comment is larger.by simonjgreen
- Seems like this does the reverse of the C64 demo "A Mind Is Born" (https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/): that one is making music first, and simultaneously interprets it as graphics. Of course that C64 demo is huge compared to this x86 one :)by gsliepen
- There are several tiny demos on pouet.net, such as this 32 bytes dragon fractal: https://m.pouet.net/prod.php?which=63522
Very impressive what people can craft in an order of magnitude fewer bytes than this comment!
by amenghra - I thought this was going to convert a matrix rain into sound but it does visual and sound. Amazing. And it is almost like a decent track, music is going round in my head now.
Is this a program or a secret key that unlocks a beast? Not sure!
by dnnddidiej - The same author wrote a long writeup a number of years back on their other demo "Memories." It is a great read! http://www.sizecoding.org/wiki/Memoriesby blackle
- For a more laid-back chill 'rain' demo, have a look at "Rainy 32b" 32-byte x86 demo:by briansm
- My most favourite demo is "Freespin" which runs entirely on a floppy drive without a computer. Crazy stuff.by ObiKenobi