HellMood

The sound works in DosBox-X if you use the providesd config file

It also works on real old DOS PCs (or Windows XP/98 "DOS") but it would require changing a few bytes, mainly to setup UART MIDI mode

The demoscene has a curated collection of "best 16 bytes ever" https://nanogems.demozoo.org/#16_byte_intros As well as 32,64 and so on ... It even goes down to 8(!) Byte productions

Technical write up for "Endbot" 256 bytes MSDOS program with plot, sync, sound, and payoff. Released April 4th at Revision Demoparty 2026.

"Enchanted" is a 256 bytes(!) program that achieved 2nd place at this years "Revision" 256 bytes competition. The music you hear is also produced by these 256 bytes of code.

Youtube Capture -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3SgDwyblis

Revision Website -> https://2025.revision-party.net/blog/afterparty/

Code -> https://hellmood.111mb.de//enchanted.asm

Hi there :)

Author here, i quickly threw together a Python Port on Google Colab which also can generate an animated GIF. It's not meant to be perfectly coded or exactly emulating the assembler instructions, it just produces the same image(s)

https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1BFjI3GmuboYzTAf-jeJ...

Example Image : https://i.imgur.com/zIIRLam.gif

Lovebyte 2025 was a sizecoding competition held online from 15. to 16. February this year. They were hosting many size restricted competitions - going from 32 bytes to 1024 bytes, where coders from all around the world could anonymously submit entries to compete against each other. The 64 byte competition was won by "Starpath", a tiny animated raycaster showing curved 3D geometry with fake lighting, a copper night sky and a few tiny stars, while playing ambient wind sound over the speakers. In the download archive you will find different versions together with commented source code, the smallest one -only 55 bytes- is shown and explained in short (t)here

From 8.9 - 10.9. the yearly "Function" Demoscene Event with coding competitions was held in Budapest/Hungary https://2023.function.hu/

The winner of this years 256 byte intro competition: "Farewell" A 256 bytes intro for MSDOS showcasing four different real time 3D scenes(!) together with a soothing e-piano soundtrack

link to binary (etc.) https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=95042 Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMMwP4SljXo

This production not only won the 256b competition with huge lead it also got the highest score among all other competitions at the event https://www.pouet.net/party_results.php?which=617&when=2023

In case you have any questions regarding more details please ask right away =)

The winner of this years 256 byte intro competition a 256 bytes intro for MSDOS, showcasing four different real time 3D scenes together with a soothing e-piano soundtrack

link to binary (etc.) https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=95042

Related discord channel : https://discord.gg/fvNHYjzV

zooming rotating animation of an earth like textured planet with music, all generated from 256 bytes of x86 binary code for MS Dos, written in plain assembler

Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJo6UudSY1I Commented Source : https://hellmood.111mb.de//one.zip

"...The submitted version (62 bytes) works as is in MS/FreeDos it is very fast though. There is another version without sound, synced to the timer, which is 44 bytes, also working on all Dos Versions. A size way lower than 40 bytes can be achieved with cutting alignment and color mapping..." (https://www.pouet.net/prod_nfo.php?which=86986)

The final freedos version is available. It includes the Amiga Ball as extra effect. The filesize is still 256 bytes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlW84fEHngM

(source included in the link, writeup will follow) To my knowledge, the first implementation ever in 32 bytes. This builds upon the 65 bytes version of Vladislav Kaipetsky, Tenie Remmel and Mark Andreas from 1998.

Edit: The writeup is now available : http://www.sizecoding.org/wiki/Game_of_Life_32b

Capture : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgqiLf19og4

i included your explanation in the wiki http://www.sizecoding.org/wiki/General_Coding_Tricks#Obtaini...

Agreed. Just as a heads up regarding "future safety", the guys at NVIDIA - for now - seem to keep the door open for Dos/Bios with very high possible resolutions https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=63522#c858522 and even without the need for going the VESA way. Nothing i would really rely on in a business case ;) but neat anyway. (Mode List for several current GPUs : https://www.pouet.net/topic.php?which=11672&page=1 )

(author here) All right, but at least the 1k category for Mac/Intel had some cool productions recently. https://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?type%5B0%5D=1k&platform%5... Not my field exactly, but it seemed like the boilerplate was a bit shorter than for other platforms, so there was decent interest in it.

(author here) I didn't know about this fast inverse trick, but i find it VERY funny that in "Memories" i use almost the same technique to create the "ocean" effect ;) http://www.sizecoding.org/wiki/Memories#Ocean_night_to_day_2 Maybe i was inverse square rooting all the time without knowing it ^^

#truckbreaker ;) yes, the overall reception was overwhelming, i didn't expect that. i completely agree with your post before, just wanted to point to "ikubun" =)

(author here) Well, he is not entirely wrong. There is "m8trix", an 8 byte program (later optimized to seven bytes), that does - jump into the middle of it's own instructions - using 2 of that 7 bytes again as DATA - using FLAG register content as COLOR See : http://www.sizecoding.org/wiki/M8trix_8b

But all that doesn't really cut the space down in something as "big" as 256 bytes, it's the approach and the algorithms that do =)

(author here) Not quite, a 256 bytes PC intro CAN have decent non MIDI music as showcased here https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=79281 (won the "outstanding technical achievment" award) I did some intros in 32 bytes and 16 bytes having that "horrible buzzer", looks like some ASCII effects and a dutch gabber bassline is the maximum you can get in this category :D ( https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=76093)

You can always challenge yourself to create "something" in 32 bytes or 16 bytes. That is soo small, that sounds and graphics are rather abstract and it comes downto: does it produce something not random, noticable. For example, here is a paint program in 16 bytes : https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=62025 (the objective would be : create a program that allows painting on a canvas with the mouse) There have been ASM competitions with clear objectives in the past (http://www.hugi.scene.org/compo/) but these are long gone and seem to be replace with something like https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/ now

That one is really amazing! I still don't understand how this didn't win the "Meteoriks" award (my "hypnoteye" did https://www.pouet.net/awards.php#2015tiny-intro ) Sadly, Baudsurfer has not been "around" for quite a while now ...

(author here) I didn't know about that one. I use http://twt86.co/ (no music there too, sadly) On both websites the performance is rather bad, but that is something that time will solve for us :D

I would clearly prefer a web browser with a dosbox to the "real" dosbox when it comes to safety...

(author here) "you'll notice the speed of the animation change" that might be, but the demo is designed to run at equal speed on all systems (it hooks into the timer) if you experience animation speed differences, that means your system can not handle what dosbox (on high cycles) demands. It should be noted that DosBox is far slower than people expect it to be, and also, that in actual competitions in the demoscene, real modern hardware is booted to Freedos, but has no sound. So if you want sound (with MIDI) in a competition, you have to stick to the rather slow dosbox, and even optimize against an emulator which can be really really weird. (https://www.pouet.net/topic.php?which=11881) I wouldn't claim the demo runs fine on a real 486, but a pentium should do, as a variation of the raycast tunnel part indicates (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_3CU6shKlY)

(author here) you're right (about confusing), i wasn't expecting more than a few people to actually read this ;) at least i quickly repaired the float/fixed thing.

(author here) interesting guess, but wrong, as others explained. for maximum purity you can try to NOT call any dos functions or interrupts. i gave that a try in the production "noint10h" ;) https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=80769

(author here) it is not, as others explained. But if you're interested in bruteforcing, you can try to find a short code for the 7 bytes ( yes, seven bytes) version of my program "m8trix" (https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=63126, in the comments), that should be a tad more easy ;)

(author here) it doesn't. it sets the timer to about 35 FPS and installs a callback routine that is called repeatedly as interrupt. Smoothing is rather done implicitly by "triple diagonal interlacing"

(author here) Well there is http://twt86.co/ You can try samples, write your own code, or create clickable links =)