- The GameBoy emulator's code also looks like the GameBoy. Slow clap this is insane, definitely my favorite entry.
https://github.com/ioccc-src/winner/blob/master/2025/ncw1/pr...
The author, Nick Craig-Wood, is the creator of rclone!
- My favorite is the 366-byte C program emulator that can run Linux and Doom [0].
The VM implements an OISC - a One Instruction Set Computer [1].
[0] https://github.com/ioccc-src/winner/blob/master/2025/cable/p...
[1] https://github.com/ioccc-src/winner/blob/master/2025/cable/R...
by yayitswei
4 subcomments
- In case anyone was wondering, the IOCCC specifically permits LLM use in their guidelines.
"The IOCCC has a rich history of remarkable winning entries created by authors who skillfully employed various techniques (often their own tools) to develop their code."
- The website itself is obfuscated, it’s not easy to find the C sources at all!
- There's a Frieren [1] reference in there!
https://www.ioccc.org/2025/yang2/index.html
One of the main characters is called Fern, and she almost exclusively uses the common offensive magic of Zoltraak.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frieren
- I with the Underhanded C Contest would come back, it was far more interesting to me. No disrespect intended to the Obfuscated C competitors.
by msk-lywenn
1 subcomments
- OMG, my game boy game of life implementation is included in one of the winning entries!
- Back in 2000 I was being interviewed for my first internship, to join a team of C programmers. They showed me one of the winner entries of the prior years, asked me to review the code and left the room. About 5 minutes later they came back:
– And?
– I'm sorry I wasted your time. I just can't understand it.
They burst into laughs and asked me to start the joining process.
I wonder if people still make fun of interns. I still have a good laugh when I remember myself freaking out.
- I love the submissions of IOCCC generally, but the schedule and submission process looks like a mess, is that part of the joke? Or is it just because being consistent and designing a simple process is hard¡
by Gathering6678
0 subcomment
- There's another contest called Underhanded C that I enjoyed a lot reading, but it has been inactive for a decade at this point...
by tomcloney007
0 subcomment
- [flagged]
by swordlucky666
0 subcomment
- [dead]
- I'm not sure this kind of competition is still meaningful, given that LLM can easily convert a program clearly written in any programming language to the most obfuscated C code, and can still easily verify it's correctness in an automated way.
Do I miss anything?
- Tis a pity to not have LLMs compete, given level of obfuscation they be capable of.
- So like at a film festival, 90% of the entries won a price, but unlike a film festival there's not a single best. Weird, like modern education.
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