2012 iPad mini runs 90k-line Zig game at 60fps with ~100 lines of patches
banteg · x · 2026-09-17
Developer slvDev ported banteg's Zig rebuild of Crimsonland to a 2012 iPad mini 1st gen (A5 / 512MB RAM / iOS 9.3.5): 90k lines of Zig left untouched, only 100 lines of iOS patches added. The toolchain is Zig → C → Xcode clang for 32-bit ARM, with a custom raylib iOS backend on OpenGL ES 2, touch sticks, and working sound—hitting 60 fps at 60MB RAM.
The same author also demonstrated another trick: once you get ssh access to old hardware, a $30-50 secondhand iPad becomes a native Home Assistant wall panel (the official HA app doesn't support iOS 9), priced like a popular esp32 IoT board.
More from coding & agent
- Typing 'c' to approve: the inside jokes of AI coding agent prompts — burhop · 2026-09-17
- Dev lead running 50 deploys a day shares how to write and run tests in the vibe coding era — dotey · 2026-09-17
- YC built AI versions of its partners on GLM-5.2, cutting latency 31% vs OpenAI — ycombinator · 2026-09-17
- Shape Claude's Tools the Way You Want Instead of Hiding Behind Indirection — trq212 · 2026-09-17
- Out of Codex quota? Signing in with a new Plus account preserves all your chats — TheMoonMidas · 2026-09-17
- Vercel's fx may switch safety reviewer to Jev: 5-18x faster than GPT Luna — thesaraharminta · 2026-09-17