Show HN: A language model that lives in a boot sector
0 comments
- Points109
- Comments6
–Rank now
#15Peak rank
5Days on list
–Score · 7d
Oct 31, 2026First seen
On Hacker News
All the ideas came from the boot sector demo scene where people had been writing chess and BASIC games in 512 bytes, even a C compiler. I wondered what one can do using a neural network instead of a program and generating boot logs for non-existent hardware was something fun to try. Entire inference engine is 510 bytes of MBR, weights, vocab, and strings reside in the sectors following MBR. Small char-level neural network was trained on dmesg generated by machine, so machine produces Linux…
- Points
- 109
- Comments
- 6
- Submitted by
- kerlenton
- Posted
- Oct 31, 2026
- Site
- github.com
Story details from Hacker News ↗ · linked article on github.com.
Trending history
Show HN: A language model that lives in a boot sector was first seen on Hacker News · Front page on Oct 31, 2026. Since then it has appeared in 99 checks on 5 different days, across 2 lists (Hacker News · Front page, Hacker News · Show HN · this week). Its best position was #15 of 29, reached on Oct 31, 23:37 UTC. It dropped off the list after Nov 7, 12:50 UTC.
Rank history
Position on Hacker News · Front page at every check (lower is better).
Last 14 days
Best rank per day (UTC).
15
15
Oct 26today
Metric history
Platform metric as reported by Hacker News.
Where it trended
| List | Best | Days | Checks | Last seen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hacker News · Front page | #15 | 2 | 46 | |
| Hacker News · Show HN · this week | #15 | 3 | 53 |
From the discussion
A few top-level comments from Hacker News, shortened. Read the full thread on Hacker News.
This is the kind of silly engineering that makes me appreciate humans. I need reminders sometimes that the world is filled with humans doing wierd things to share with one another. Not everything is about economic value or practicality. Making silly shit can be the goal.
Delightful. Would love to read more about how you made it, or how you learned to do this kind of thing.
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Hacker News 2 days, best #15
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Questions
Is Show HN: A language model that lives in a boot sector trending on Hacker News right now?
Not at the moment. It was last on the list on Nov 7, 12:50 UTC, after 5 days of trending.
What is the highest rank Show HN: A language model that lives in a boot sector reached?
#15 on Hacker News · Front page, on Oct 31, 23:37 UTC. Trendoday checks this list every 15 minutes.
How long has Show HN: A language model that lives in a boot sector been trending?
It was first seen on Oct 31, 2026 and has been on the list on 5 days (99 checks) since.
How much discussion did it get on Hacker News?
109 points and 6 comments; submitted by kerlenton on Oct 31, 2026.