16 ms·

Solitaire, written inside the bootloader

66 points by masneyb 11y ago

voidz 11y ago
Great video! Very funny. Well done writing Solitaire in only 510 bytes of assembly!
s3arch 11y ago
awesome...good job..... You guys did it inside the bootloader. Whenever I switch on my computer just for watching a movie or listen to music and nothing else... I feel it so unnecessary to boot up my fedora, load my cpu and ram with programs that has nothing to do with video player.... I was wondering if there is any stable minimal OS which is dedicated only for movies, songs, and nothing else.... I am aware of couple of media centers such as kodi, osmc and openelec.... But haven't found any minimalistic systems....
- TheTravCav 11y ago
  geexbox is the closest thing i can think of. You can even use http://www.geexbox.org/iso-generator/ http://www.geexbox.org/iso-generator/ to put the movie and the os on disc/usb and boot to the movie basically.
- fancy_pantser 11y ago
  For existing audio hardware there are projects like http://www.rockbox.org http://www.rockbox.org that are minimalistic firmware replacements that you can hack on. On the video side I can't think of anything similar to DVD firmware that's open source but that sounds like what you're looking for. I've attempted a few slimmed down Linux distros for the Raspberry Pi and alternative OSes that can play back media. Things to check out would be: RISC OS, OpenElec, PiCore, PiPlay, Minibian...
- klibertp 11y ago
  Try KolibriOS[1]. It does have a media player AFAIK. Also, it comes on a single floppy. [1] http://wiki.kolibrios.org/wiki/Main_Page http://wiki.kolibrios.org/wiki/Main_Page
antongribok 11y ago
Could someone please explain why the limit is 510 bytes and not 448 bytes? Asking because I thought that the last 64 bytes were reserved for the partition table? Any link to where I can get a refresher on this topic?
- extrapickles 11y ago
  Quite a few bioes only check to see if the boot signature is there, and don't bother validating the partition table, so effectively you can use those bytes if you don't care about compatibility. Wikipedia has a good article to dust the memory off: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record
- rfotino 11y ago
  Not an expert but since they didn't plan on actually booting an OS, perhaps they didn't need the partition table so those 64 bytes could go toward more instructions for solitaire.

66 points by masneyb 11y ago

voidz 11y ago

Great video! Very funny. Well done writing Solitaire in only 510 bytes of assembly!

awesome...good job..... You guys did it inside the bootloader. Whenever I switch on my computer just for watching a movie or listen to music and nothing else... I feel it so unnecessary to boot up my fedora, load my cpu and ram with programs that has nothing to do with video player.... I was wondering if there is any stable minimal OS which is dedicated only for movies, songs, and nothing else.... I am aware of couple of media centers such as kodi, osmc and openelec.... But haven't found any minimalistic systems....

TheTravCav 11y ago
geexbox is the closest thing i can think of. You can even use http://www.geexbox.org/iso-generator/ http://www.geexbox.org/iso-generator/ to put the movie and the os on disc/usb and boot to the movie basically.
fancy_pantser 11y ago
For existing audio hardware there are projects like http://www.rockbox.org http://www.rockbox.org that are minimalistic firmware replacements that you can hack on. On the video side I can't think of anything similar to DVD firmware that's open source but that sounds like what you're looking for. I've attempted a few slimmed down Linux distros for the Raspberry Pi and alternative OSes that can play back media. Things to check out would be: RISC OS, OpenElec, PiCore, PiPlay, Minibian...
klibertp 11y ago
Try KolibriOS[1]. It does have a media player AFAIK. Also, it comes on a single floppy. [1] http://wiki.kolibrios.org/wiki/Main_Page http://wiki.kolibrios.org/wiki/Main_Page

antongribok 11y ago

Could someone please explain why the limit is 510 bytes and not 448 bytes? Asking because I thought that the last 64 bytes were reserved for the partition table? Any link to where I can get a refresher on this topic?

extrapickles 11y ago
Quite a few bioes only check to see if the boot signature is there, and don't bother validating the partition table, so effectively you can use those bytes if you don't care about compatibility. Wikipedia has a good article to dust the memory off: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record
rfotino 11y ago
Not an expert but since they didn't plan on actually booting an OS, perhaps they didn't need the partition table so those 64 bytes could go toward more instructions for solitaire.