hackertube.io

Freespin

Matthias Kramm · demo · Watch on YouTube

Demoscene & retrocomputing

What it is

Freespin is a demo that runs on a Commodore 1541 floppy drive. It makes sound by vibrating the drive head and video by toggling the serial bus lines, and it keeps running after the C64 that booted it is disconnected.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Shared as a favorite example of retrocomputing hackery, a demo that runs entirely on a disk drive.

  • 1 people recommended it
  • 1 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2021, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “which runs entirely on a floppy drive without a computer. Crazy stuff.”

    Favorite demo running entirely on a floppy drive without a computer.

    ObiKenobi, 2026-05 · Strong recommendation · in “WriteUp: 16 Bytes of x86 that turn Matrix rain into sound”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: commodore 64, 1541, demoscene, retrocomputing, floppy drive

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