Programming Boot Sector Games
by Oscar Toledo Gutierrez · first published 2019
14mentions
6recommended by
10HN commenters
2019–2026first – last mentioned
60% recommend40% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Fun, hands-on route into x86 assembly through tiny games that fit in a 512-byte boot sector; includes a quick 8086 assembly primer and teaches clever low-level tricks, suiting hobbyists and programmers new to assembly.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
His book - "Programming Boot Sector Games" - is really fantastic. One of my favorite bed-time reads ;) http://www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/oscar-toledo-gutierrez/progra... And to the OP: this is fantastic - how are you doing the in-browser demo?…
on “Show HN: Pong in 512 bytes (boot sector)” ↗The author has two books about writing small games that can run in the boot sector. First book also has a quick course in 8086 Assembly: Programming Boot Sector Games More Boot Sector Games
on “Ray tracer in a boot sector” ↗…game you can buy on Steam. After spending a few hours working on problems in this, I felt a hard-to-describe mental shift that removed the intimidation of assembly. 2. Work through the first half of /Programming Boot Sector Games/ by Toledo. 3. Designing and building a simple instruction architecture, implementing it as a VM, writing an assembler for it. The ChibiAkamus tutorials on youtube may be worth a look, also. If you…
on “Ask HN: How to begin learning assembler for university course?” ↗Oscar Toledo is awesome. I have his book Programming Boot Sector Games, and it's wonderful.
on “Atari 2600 Video Chess disassembled and commented” ↗I have Oscar's 'Programming Boot Sector Games' and I worked through it last summer. Great fun! And having programmed from 1978 on a Commodore PET 2001 in PET Basic and later on Vic-20 and Amigas in assembler and C, I learned a few new tricks from…
on “Atari 2600 Video Chess disassembled and commented” ↗Awesome read. I wish I'd started programming when I was a teenager. I mean, I did some BASIC on a Commodore 64, but nothing as advanced as OP was doing in his teens. By the way, I also have OP's "Programming Boot Sector Games" book, which is an amazing book.
on “I coded a Pascal compiler for transputer as a teen in 1993” ↗…hours on my part on school nights. I moved on to assembler and C and many other languages over the years. I had a renaissance for the low-level and small thanks to you. Oscar, I worked through your, "Programming Boot Sector Games" with much joy. Your books and writing have brought back some of that nostalgia and fun for me, so thank you for that, and keep it going! It's also resharpened some dead areas and gaps I have sustained…
on “My teen years: The transputer operating system” ↗I've had a goal for the past three years to learn Assembly language. This December, I finally put some real effort into learning the language. I followed the tutorials in Oscar Toledo G's "Programming Boot Sector Games" and used Gemini as a tutor to help explain the concepts I was stuck on. It was tempting at points to vibe code some of the trickiest pieces, but I found resisting the temptation and using Gemini just…
on “Show HN: I wrote a Christmas-themed Space Invaders clone in 8086 Assembly” ↗…in the 80s, and assembly for 8-bit micros in the 90s. I left assembly until just 4 years ago, and then I started playing with it again for boot sector games because of Oscar Toledo Gutierrez's book, 'Programming Boot Sector Games', for fun. Now there's, 'More Boot Sector Games'. I was a Commodore PET 2001, Vic-20, Amiga 1000, Amiga 500, and Apple PowerPC user back in the day (1978 to 1997), but it looks like DOS/Gates has won;…
on “Nasm – A cross-platform x86 assembler with an Intel-like syntax” ↗…Aardvark game for the Atari 2600 ([3]). Also seems he has just self-published a book (as of July 27): Do you would like more details on the inner workings? This program is fully commented in my new book Programming Boot Sector Games and you'll also find a 8086/8088 crash course! Now available from Lulu [4] [1] https://github.com/nanochess/Invaders [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC976eejfms [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNZfw6jShng…
on “BootOS: Monolithic operating system in 512 bytes of x86 machine code” ↗> Also seems he has just self-published a book (as of July 27): > Do you would like more details on the inner workings? This program is fully commented in my new book Programming Boot Sector Games and you'll also find a 8086/8088 crash course! I created one such game [1] a few years ago and had plenty of fun. I'm pretty shocked to see an actual book published specifically about this niche topic.…
on “BootOS: Monolithic operating system in 512 bytes of x86 machine code” ↗…BootMine - https://github.com/io12/BootMine - Bootable minesweeper game in a 512-byte boot sector • Invaders game in 512 bytes - https://github.com/nanochess/Invaders The author has written a book called Programming Boot Sector Games. > A crash course into 8086/8088 assembler programming, in an easy way with practice at each step. You will learn how to use the registers, move data, do arithmetic, and handle text and graphics. You…
on “Ask HN: What are some impressive software projects that fit in 512 bytes?” ↗…books and doing experiments. Recently, I got three Commodore 64 (the descendants of the PET) and I just want to type some BASIC games and start learning. I'm very humbled by the experience of writing "Programming Boot Sector Games", because like you, many people have told me about having a nice experience reading and learning with it, and I'm glad the effort was worth it.
on “My teen years: The transputer operating system” ↗Yeah, I worked my way through Oscar Toledo's book, "Programming Boot Sector Games". I used to program in 6502 machine language and assembler. If you like Life, you should check out Andrew Ilachinski's book, "Cellular Automata: A Discrete Universe".
on “Show HN: Conway's Game of Life in boot sector” ↗