0xAX/BootLife

Conway's Game of Life running directly from a 512-byte x86 boot sector, using VGA memory as the simulation grid.

Assembly

2 commits

updated Sep 21, 2026

See the code

assembly

bootsector

bootsector-game

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Source	Message	Score	Date
	Show HN: Conway's Game of Life running from a 512-byte x86 boot sector	1	Sep 21, 2026

README

BootLife

Conway's Game of Life running directly from a 512-byte x86 boot sector, using VGA memory as the simulation grid.

Usage • Why • Contributing • Author

Usage

To build and run bootlife you need:

NASM
QEMU

Use the following commands to run it:

nasm -f bin -o life.img life.asm

qemu-system-i386 -drive file=life.img,format=raw,if=floppy

Or just:

make run

Why

Just for fun 💾

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome - see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Author

0xAX

Contributors

0xAX

2 commits

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0xAX/BootLife

Conway's Game of Life running directly from a 512-byte x86 boot sector, using VGA memory as the simulation grid.

Assembly

2 commits

updated Sep 21, 2026

See the code

assembly

bootsector

bootsector-game

See what people are saying (1)

Newest first

Most points

Source	Message	Score	Date
	Show HN: Conway's Game of Life running from a 512-byte x86 boot sector	1	Sep 21, 2026

README

BootLife

Conway's Game of Life running directly from a 512-byte x86 boot sector, using VGA memory as the simulation grid.

Usage • Why • Contributing • Author

Usage

To build and run bootlife you need:

NASM
QEMU

Use the following commands to run it:

nasm -f bin -o life.img life.asm

qemu-system-i386 -drive file=life.img,format=raw,if=floppy

Or just:

make run

Why

Just for fun 💾

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome - see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Author

0xAX

Similar repos

cleak/FlappyBoot

Flappy Boot is an Atari 2600 game written in 6502 assembly.

gabe565/cli-of-life

Play Conway's Game of Life in your terminal.

xorvoid/sectorc

A C Compiler that fits in the 512 byte boot sector of an x86 machine

1,861

obinexus/mmuko-boot

MMUKO Boot Sequence

Made-In-Basement/ember

An operating system written from scratch: boot sector, FAT filesystem, DOS-compatible interrupts,…

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red-mutt/lytlnyblOS

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jggonz/os8088

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Contributors

0xAX

2 commits

Languages

Assembly

98.7%

Makefile

1.3%