656581·Nov 7, 2023Submission
Builder-Hex0 – bootstrap compilers without a prebuilt binary
3 points · Open discussionironmeld
builder-hex0
C2022–2023
ironmeld / builder-hex0
builder-hex0
Builder-Hex0 is a minimal build system which includes a bootloader, kernel, shell, and a hex0 compiler
2Distinct people
6Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
96GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Builder-Hex0 is a minimal build system which includes a bootloader, kernel, shell, and a hex0 compiler
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by month6 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2022-03-25 15:41:55 UTC to 2023-11-07 14:00:15 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 2022 | 2022-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Apr 2022 | 2022-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| May 2022 | 2022-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Jun 2022 | 2022-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jul 2022 | 2022-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Aug 2022 | 2022-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2022 | 2022-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Oct 2022 | 2022-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Nov 2022 | 2022-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 2022 | 2022-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jan 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Feb 2023 | 2023-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2023 | 2023-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Apr 2023 | 2023-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| May 2023 | 2023-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jun 2023 | 2023-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jul 2023 | 2023-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Aug 2023 | 2023-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2023 | 2023-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Oct 2023 | 2023-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Nov 2023 | 2023-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
6 sourcesWith builder-hex0, 512 bytes are more than enough. https://github.com/ironmeld/builder-hex0
In A C Compiler that fits in the 512 byte boot sector of an x86 machineIsn't that what builder-hex0 does?
https://github.com/ironmeld/builder-hex0
In NixOS Reproducible Builds: minimal ISO successfully independently rebuiltBuilder-Hex0: kernel for bootstrapping compilers without trusting a binary
2 points · Open discussionThis project compliments the stage0 project (featured on the HN front page earlier today) which builds a C compiler using an assembler that is bootstrapped from hex. However, those bootstraps require an existing kernel. You are required to provide your own. I decided, as a challenge, to build a tiny purpose-built x86 32-bit kernel which can run the stage0-posix shells and compilers all the way
to the M2-Planet compiler, which is a subset of C. I learned (after starting) that they plan on writing a bootstrap kernel themselves, so I hope this helps in some way. It took three months of very tedious and error-prone work because I avoided, on principle, using an assembler except to check the encoding of individual opcodes. (All jump offsets were hand calculated.) Please see github.com/ironmeld/builder-hex0 for it's history.
In Show HN: A 3K Posix bootstrap kernel written in hexFrom the PDF:
"It is true: in our quest to make full use of the CPU, we must abandon all of those helpful routines provided by BIOS. As we will see when we look in more detail at the 32-bit protected mode switch-over, BIOS routines, having been coded to work only in 16-bit real mode, are no longer valid in 32-bit protected mode; indeed, attempting to use them would likely crash the machine.
"So what this means is that a 32-bit operating system must provide its own drivers for all hardware of the machine (e.g. the keybaord, screen, disk drives, mouse, etc). Actually, it is possible for a 32-bit protected mode operating system to switch temporarily back into 16-bit mode whereupon it may utilise BIOS, but this teachnique can be more trouble than it is worth, especially in terms of performance."
--
In the toy 32-bit OS I am currently writing,
Read the rest
having easy disk access and text output was more important to me than performance, so I decided to implement this technique to access the disk and screen via the BIOS instead of writing an ATA disk driver.
Although I could not find any minimal yet complete working examples of dropping to 16 bit and later resuming 32 bit mode, I was able to piece it together and write assembly functions called enter_16bit_real and resume_32bit_mode. See https://github.com/ironmeld/builder-hex0/blob/main/builder-h.... Those routines are working well but beware the project is a volatile work in progress and is coded in hex for bootstrapping reasons.