A Mind Is Born (256 bytes)

lftkryo
14 HN recommenders · recommended in 15 months, 2017–2025
YouTube
1.2M views · 9 years ago · demo · evergreen

A recording of A Mind Is Born, a Commodore 64 demo by Linus Åkesson that fits its music and visuals into 256 bytes of code. It plays for more than two minutes.

HN holds it up as the extreme case of what tiny code can do, both as a size feat and as a compelling piece of music.

“It's only 256 bytes, but can generate over 2 minutes of complex music and video.”
Shaders & real-time visualsGenerative art
#demoscene#commodore64#sizecoding#chiptune#generativevisuals

26 comments from Hacker News

T
@TacticalCoder2023 · in “Platform Hopping”
By now when I see "linusakesson.net" I upvote without reading, then I read TFA and watch the vid (or listen to the music in this case). I'm never disappointed. Speaking of which I plan to do something really cool: I've got a "time capsule" C64 (well C128 but close enough) and it still works. It's never been "polluted" by anything modern: no "gotek" SD reader, no nothing: just a real time capsule from the early to mid eighties. And I plan to encode, manually, the 256 bytes (yes, bytes) of linusakesson's "A mind is born" C64 demo. I'll then run it (with the C128 hooked to an old CRT, of course), thinking that technically I could have encoded and ran that in the eighties. Mind blowing stuff: ▶ this video
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T
@TacticalCoder2021 · in “Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were called "feature phones"”
> fwiw, this made me spend a few minutes in youtube looking at old c64 and apple and Atari demos. what people ended up doing with those devices - years after they were mainstream - is still crazy to me. The craziest ever, to me, is the following in 256... bytes. Bytes (including the music ofc, which is the whole point). ▶ this video
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w
@wgx2020 · in “Memories – 256 bytes demo winner of Revision 2020”
Not MS-DOS, but my favourite 256 byte demo is for the C64: "A Mind Is Born", check it out: ▶ this video that music is astonishing.
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t
@twic2020 · in “A Mysterious Song on the Internet (2019)”
There's an amazing demo called 'A Mind Is Born': ▶ this video Amazing principally because the whole thing is 256 bytes: link I never meet anyone who has even heard of the demoscene, let alone come seen this particular work. I was at a film festival watching a programme of short films, one of which was the well-made AI-box escape romp 'Watch Room': link And similarly found my interface with my seat disrupted by the closing credits using the music from 'A Mind Is Born'. This being a festival, the director was there, so i could tell him how much i appreciated the reference!
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k
@kwoff2018 · in “A dive into the making of a 64K Intro”
I still play ▶ this video over and over, just for the song, not only because it is 256 bytes, but because it is a compelling song too.
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y
@yetihehe2025 · in “Human brains are preconfigured with instructions for understanding the world”
For a demonstration of Kolmogorov complexity, it's good to watch "A mind is born"[0] by lftkryo. It's only 256 bytes, but can generate over 2 minutes of complex music and video. Also, the name is appropriate for this topic :D [0] ▶ this video
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B
@BenoitEssiambre2025 · in “Conway's Game of Life, but musical”
I love this stuff. This 256 byte video clip is a great example using similar principles: ▶ this video
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m
@mkaic2025 · in “A Mind Is Born (256 Bytes) (2017) [video]”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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v
@voiceblue2024 · in “Game of Life, simulating itself, infinitely zoomable”
You might enjoy watching the emergent behavior in the execution of this 256 byte program - a mind is born [0]. [0] ▶ this video
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a
@aricz2022 · in “Show HN: Mini Metroidvania in 13KB of JavaScript”
Speaking of 256 byte demos, I have to push these out link (tube by 3SC) and ▶ this video (A Mind is Born by lft). Impressive stuff indeed.
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T
@TacticalCoder2022 · in “An Afterlife User's Guide to the C64”
During the first covid lockdown, I was by "chance" stuck in the home I grew up in. And I did found my old C128 in attic (which I was only ever using in C64 mode, except to copy disks). It's a time capsule C128 that hasn't been "polluted" by anything made in the last 33 years so (I switched to the Amiga in 1989 or so). So one day I plan to manually input the 256 bytes making this insane C64 demo (posted here on HN already), keeping my time capsule C128 intact: ▶ this video
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a
@anitil2022 · in “Sonic 3D: Director's Cut (2019)”
I really like 'A Mind is Born' - ▶ this video The summary of it's development could be summarised with "It's LFSRs all the way down"
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