Z80-μLM
AI
tiny language model
SHOW HN2025
514points
122comments
#67of 3,837 in 2025
Top 2%of 2025 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
21 positive, 19 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 4 critical, out of 45 comments about the project. Thread score +0.37.
Idea: 11 for, 0 againstPerformance: 2 for, 3 againstDesign: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Impressive constraints and fun demo
From 3 comments
This is super cool. Would love to see a Z80 simulator set up with these examples to play with!
Zee2 on HNAn LLM in a .com file? Haha made my day
alfiedotwtf on HNBetween this and RAM prices Zilog stock must be up! Awesome hack. Now apply the same principles to a laptop and take a megabyte or so, see what that does.
jacquesm on HN
Nostalgic appeal of running it on retro hardware
From 3 comments
Imagine, this working on a Gameboy, in those days. Would've sounded like magic
codetiger on HNThis is excellent. Thing I’d like to do if I had time: get it running on a 48K Spectrum. 10 year old me would have found that absolutely magical back in the 1980s.
bartread on HNAwesome! Anyone for a port to the MSX? A web version would also be cool.
DrNosferatu on HN
Objections
Would be very slow on real hardware
From 1 comment
It runs, but it would be very slow on actual hardware. I tried on a cycle-accurate emulator of a TRS-80 Model I with Omikron CP/M mapper. Most Z-80 machines of the time were…
jrdres on HN
Hard to get correct answers in the 20 Questions game
From 1 comment
I've been playing the Z80-μLM demos in your CP/M emulator. Works great! However, I have yet to guess a correct answer in GUESS.COM! I'm not sure if I'm just not asking the right…
jaak on HN
Requests
Port to MSX, Spectrum, or other retro machines
From 3 comments
This is excellent. Thing I’d like to do if I had time: get it running on a 48K Spectrum. 10 year old me would have found that absolutely magical back in the 1980s.
bartread on HNAwesome! Anyone for a port to the MSX? A web version would also be cool.
DrNosferatu on HNLuckily I have a very large amount of MSX computers, zx, amstrad cpc etc and even one multiprocessor z80 cp/m machine for the real power. Wonder how gnarly this is going to…
anonzzzies on HN
Web version
From 1 comment
Awesome! Anyone for a port to the MSX? A web version would also be cool.
DrNosferatu on HN
Questions
How was quantization-aware training done?
From 1 comment
Did you train the model with quantization awareness? How?
lostmsu on HN
Was sparse weights considered?
From 1 comment
Very cool. Did you consider using sparse weights?
Y_Y on HN
Tokens per second?
From 1 comment
did you measure token/s?
NooneAtAll3 on HN
Alternatives named
ELIZA
From 3 comments
Eliza's granddaughter.
dirkt on HNMeanwhile, Eliza was ported to BASIC and was run on many home computers in the 80s.
Zardoz84 on HNit's giving Eliza! Ha, fun
bytesandbits on HN