P
p01
p01.org · Personal blog · on HN since 2008
p01 is a demoscene-style developer who builds tiny JavaScript and HTML demos and games, including playable ones inside a favicon.
What HN saysHN commenters bring up his Defender of the Favicon, a playable Defender clone in a 16x16 icon, as a classic hack, though it may no longer work.
70HN people shared it
41linked it in comments
39stories submitted
1.1Kstory points
1 year agolast shared
2008people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Defender of the Favicon (2008)14 people · 112 points · first shared 2016 · 24 comments on HN
- 2A game inside a favicon.13 people · 124 points · first shared 2010 · 12 comments on HN
- 3Matraka - Impressive/weird 1005 byte Javascript demo3 people · 5 points · first shared 2012 · 1 comments on HN
- 4EXPI by @p01 (Assembly 2023 winning 1k demo)3 people · 3 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 5Monospace: A JavaScript demo in 1021 bytes, winner of the demo competition2 people · 409 points · first shared 2020 · 122 comments on HN
- 6Raytracing a menger sponge in 512 bytes of HTML52 people · 104 points · first shared 2010 · 19 comments on HN
- 7Defender of the Favicon - Playable Defender Clone in a Favicon2 people · 51 points · first shared 2008 · 9 comments on HN
- 8Homage to Wolfenstein 3D in 20 lines of JavaScript (2008)2 people · 1 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 9Monospace compatible2 people · first shared 2020
- 10512b jspongy2 people · first shared 2010
- 11Winning 1kb intro released at Assembly 20151 people · 222 points · first shared 2015 · 64 comments on HN
- 12A music synth in 140 bytes of JavaScript1 people · 54 points · first shared 2011 · 4 comments on HN
- 131K javascript speech synthesizer1 people · 15 points · first shared 2012 · 2 comments on HN
- 14Raytraced Checkboard in 128b of JavaScript1 people · 11 points · first shared 2012 · 2 comments on HN
- 15WOLFENSTEINY: An homage to Wolfenstein 3D in 251 bytes of HTML5.1 people · 5 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
userbinator · 2017-01-21
Even if it sounded like a robot demon
Maybe a fitting name for it would be Dorth Voder.
More seriously, here's an amazingly small JS speech synth based on a similar principle (formant synthesis), and thus it has the same "robotic" sound:
http://heckmeck.de/demoscene/tiny-speech-synth-js/
http://www.p01.org/JS1K_Speech_Synthesizer/
mrspeaker · 2012-08-20
Fantastic work - I love these kinds of zany hacks. Though, this should be combined this with some "Defender of the Favicon" magic for extra gameplay options!
http://www.p01.org/releases/DEFENDER_of_the_favicon/
Erwin · 2012-07-25
Cute hack, remindining me of "Defender of the Favicon": http://www.p01.org/releases/DEFENDER_of_the_favicon/
Which is a JS version of Defender that displays wherever your browser displays the sites favorite icon.
michaels0620 · 2012-04-22
For those who are interested there is also the classic arcade game Defender in a favicon: http://www.p01.org/releases/DEFENDER_of_the_favicon/
staplung · 2025-05-27
Doesn't seem to work anymore but Defender of the Favicon was a playable version of defender in a 16x16px square
http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/
gxqoz · 2023-10-09
See also Defender of the Favicon: http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/
jansan · 2022-02-04
This thread is incomplete without a link to Defender of the Favicon (Defender-linke game in the favicon)
http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/
matthberg · 2022-01-26
For a little more info: http://www.p01.org/fluid_simulation_quine/
pronoiac · 2020-12-24
I've seen a game there, Defender of the Favicon: http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/
p01 · 2020-10-20
I use gzThermal by Caveman - https://encode.su/threads/1889-gzthermal-pseudo-thermal-view-of-Gzip-D…
He is very talented and was nice enough to implement a couple of features to help with this kind of productions when I was working on BLCK4777 - https://www.p01.org/BLCK4777
mythz · 2020-10-19
Don't try this [1] in Firefox, from the article:
> Unfortunately, Mozilla still hasn't fixed the performance bug 1190398 around ShadowBlur, filled for BLCK4777 5 years ago
> Therefore you need to use a Chromium or Webkit browser to enjoy MONOSPACE live
[1] http://www.p01.org/MONOSPACE/monospace-compatible.htm
rado · 2020-10-19
It was hard to get to a working demo and here it is: http://www.p01.org/MONOSPACE/monospace-compatible.htm
xg15 · 2020-02-13
20. Sometimes the favicon is dynamically generated by the page JS and is actually a playable arcade game: http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/
cstuder · 2020-02-13
You can even control them with JavaScript which... well, see the game for yourself:
http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/
(Press N to start, the arrow keys to move.)
hombre_fatal · 2019-04-17
Am I going crazy or haven't I used websites that update the favicon to indicate things like new notifications?
Here's a 16x16 pixel game of Defender implemented by animating the favicon: http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/
niceoutput · 2018-09-10
P01 also uses that technique in 2015. You can see here the technique http://www.p01.org/jsconf_asia_2015/
robin_reala · 2018-04-16
There’s always still Defender: http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/
kgbier · 2017-10-23
It means you can do wacky stuff like this: http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/
richdougherty · 2017-09-19
For those you are wondering, this is a webserver that serves an HTML page in a single TCP packet. I guess ≤ 1500 bytes to avoid fragmentation - shows as 1.1KB in Chrome's network view. The HTML contains embedded JavaScript that runs a simple demo with animated ASCII and playing a LOUD changing audio tone.
You can visit the demonstration website here: http://packet.city/
You can see a screenshot of the demo here: http://www.p01.org/128b_raytraced_checkboard/
xem · 2016-05-26
Related:
an interactive (zoomable) HTML/JS mandelbrot with detailed (but not long) source code + a super tiny (200 bytes) Mandelbrot tracer:
https://github.com/xem/miniMandelbrot
Also related:
ASCII Mandelbrot (111b):
http://www.p01.org/128b_mandelbrot/
viraptor · 2016-01-18
Why? So that this can exist: http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/
brobinson · 2015-07-07
For anyone who hasn't seen it, a favicon-based game:
http://www.p01.org/releases/DEFENDER_of_the_favicon/
incompatible · 2015-07-07
http://www.p01.org/releases/DEFENDER_of_the_favicon that somebody linked to shows that the animation does indeed work in the Linux version of Firefox. Weird that I've never seen one before, but now that I've seen it, I don't want to see another.
bnegreve · 2015-01-13
Here's a clickable link for #5:
http://www.p01.org/releases/DEFENDER_of_the_favicon/
Cieplak · 2014-06-03
Reminds me of http://www.p01.org/releases/20_lines_Castle_Wolfenstein/
jfoutz · 2012-08-03
I still like defender more. http://www.p01.org/releases/DEFENDER_of_the_favicon/
Negitivefrags · 2012-07-30
Here is an interesting application of this idea http://www.p01.org/releases/MATRAKA/matraka.png.html
denysonique · 2012-07-06
Another one is Matraka: http://www.p01.org/releases/MATRAKA/matraka.png.html
wilhelm · 2012-02-07
Well, this works in more browsers: http://www.p01.org/releases/DEFENDER_of_the_favicon/
est · 2011-08-08
OK, try beat this dotcom web kid's demo in 256 bytes:
http://www.p01.org/releases/256b_mars_canvas/