Show HN: MacMind – A transformer neural network in HyperCard on a 1989 Macintosh

Re:Show HN: MacMind – A transformer neural network in HyperC... by kdhaskjdhadjk on Thursday April 16, 2026 @12:26PM (#47795787)

I think it's incredible to see the potential that is still locked up in old hardware. For example the 8088 MPH demo. Amazing what he was able to do with an 8088 and CGA. All this time the hardware had that potential, but it took decades to figure out how to unlock it, long after the hardware was considered obsolete. Imagine the sort of things that might be done later down the road with hardware of 0-20 years ago if somebody really dug into it to that level.

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Re:Show HN: MacMind – A transformer neural network in HyperC... by qingcharles on Thursday April 16, 2026 @03:48PM (#47798561)

8088 MPH demo is revolutionary. I have a plan to try and backport the developments from that demo, plus other optimizations learned in the last 40 years, back into the original 8088 Elite PC version. I had Gemini Pro write a PoC using 8088 assembler to create a CGA flat-poly renderer for the ships, which worked great. Next step is to use Claude to disassemble the original Elite binary so I can figure out where the rendering code lives and try to start patching it.

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Re:Show HN: MacMind – A transformer neural network in HyperC... by ashleyn on Thursday April 16, 2026 @12:44PM (#47796074)

Retro console homebrew and demoscene are all about this. There's a lot of fun stuff going on in N64 homebrew right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNEo0aQkGnU

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Re:Show HN: MacMind – A transformer neural network in HyperC... by anthk on Friday April 17, 2026 @03:28AM (#47803375)

On the N64, an equirectangular viewer a la QT3D or the current street view is not precisely a wonder.. m68k's could do that at a similar resolution. It's simple 3D in the end.

For the rest, yes, it's really astounding until you push these polygons while moving around in a game loop...

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Re:Show HN: MacMind – A transformer neural network in HyperC... by andai on Thursday April 16, 2026 @02:50PM (#47797788)

8088 MPH: this one, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHXx3orN35Y

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Re:Show HN: MacMind – A transformer neural network in HyperC... by tomcam on Thursday April 16, 2026 @12:56PM (#47796234)

That 8088 MPH demo is a tour de force. Which tells you that the millions of Apple laptops being bricked right now instead of being recycled could have some amazing use if it were possible to wipe them clean and reuse. Sigh.

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Re:Show HN: MacMind – A transformer neural network in HyperC... by andai on Thursday April 16, 2026 @02:49PM (#47797775)

Well, we've set it up so the survival of employees and their families is tied to old products being bricked.

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Re:Show HN: MacMind – A transformer neural network in HyperC... by anthk on Friday April 17, 2026 @03:27AM (#47803365)

They created a better Pacman for Atari 2600, better Outruns for Amiga's and whatnot.

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