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Show HN: Reviving a 20-year-old puzzle game Chromatron with Ghidra and AI

28 points by stared 7mo ago

Play: https://p.migdal.pl/chromatron-oxide/ https://p.migdal.pl/chromatron-oxide/ Repo: https://github.com/stared/chromatron-oxide/ https://github.com/stared/chromatron-oxide/ (educational purpose only) The original: https://www.silverspaceship.com/chromatron/ https://www.silverspaceship.com/chromatron/ Full story in the blog post.

alberto-m 7mo ago
Excellent article, thanks!
casey2 7mo ago
Very nice. But "Models excel at code, but not at visual inspection" is limited, Claude excel's at code cause that is anthropics main focus. Google will leapfrog them soon. I could never see Claude doing this without a human in the loop, while Google has probably already reverse engineered a good chunk of the software available on the web
- stared 7mo ago
  When dealing with binaries, Gemini 3.1 Pro is in the same tier as Opus 4.6, https://quesma.com/benchmarks/binaryaudit/ https://quesma.com/benchmarks/binaryaudit/. Here are the results without humans in the loop, fully end-to-end. For any practical development, you want humans in the loop, just precisely as much as it is needed (e.g. to ask the right questions, not to get steered away), but not more.
- rsalus 7mo ago
  Doubtful.
xnx 7mo ago
Similar recent project for Skyroads: https://github.com/ammaarreshi/SkyRoads-Codex https://github.com/ammaarreshi/SkyRoads-Codex
duskwuff 7mo ago
The source code to Chromatron was made available on the game's forum at one point. Here's a copy I saved: https://gist.github.com/duskwuff/513e2b4f38b3db2e060c8611ebf5bb97 https://gist.github.com/duskwuff/513e2b4f38b3db2e060c8611ebf... A couple of helper functions are missing, but nothing terribly important.
- stared 7mo ago
  I wasn't aware it existed - and thanks for saving! And wow, this code is beautiful.
ticulatedspline 7mo ago
FWIW game works fine on windows 11 64bit. went to https://www.silverspaceship.com/chromatron/ https://www.silverspaceship.com/chromatron/ ran the exe. fun game.
- stared 7mo ago
  It is good to hear that! So, as always, the problem is not with gaming, but Apple gaming.

28 points by stared 7mo ago

alberto-m 7mo ago

Excellent article, thanks!

casey2 7mo ago

Very nice. But "Models excel at code, but not at visual inspection" is limited, Claude excel's at code cause that is anthropics main focus. Google will leapfrog them soon. I could never see Claude doing this without a human in the loop, while Google has probably already reverse engineered a good chunk of the software available on the web

stared 7mo ago
When dealing with binaries, Gemini 3.1 Pro is in the same tier as Opus 4.6, https://quesma.com/benchmarks/binaryaudit/ https://quesma.com/benchmarks/binaryaudit/. Here are the results without humans in the loop, fully end-to-end. For any practical development, you want humans in the loop, just precisely as much as it is needed (e.g. to ask the right questions, not to get steered away), but not more.
rsalus 7mo ago
Doubtful.

xnx 7mo ago

Similar recent project for Skyroads: https://github.com/ammaarreshi/SkyRoads-Codex https://github.com/ammaarreshi/SkyRoads-Codex

duskwuff 7mo ago

The source code to Chromatron was made available on the game's forum at one point. Here's a copy I saved: https://gist.github.com/duskwuff/513e2b4f38b3db2e060c8611ebf5bb97 https://gist.github.com/duskwuff/513e2b4f38b3db2e060c8611ebf... A couple of helper functions are missing, but nothing terribly important.

stared 7mo ago
I wasn't aware it existed - and thanks for saving! And wow, this code is beautiful.

ticulatedspline 7mo ago

FWIW game works fine on windows 11 64bit. went to https://www.silverspaceship.com/chromatron/ https://www.silverspaceship.com/chromatron/ ran the exe. fun game.

stared 7mo ago
It is good to hear that! So, as always, the problem is not with gaming, but Apple gaming.