AI image generation is all the rage, and with all the talk about AI PCs, NPUs, and Nvidia H100s, you'd be forgiven for thinking that only super-modern hardware is up to the task. But thanks to some algorithmic research and some good old-fashioned ingenuity, we've found that even an aging Commodore 64 can get in on the action.
Hackaday user Nick Bild explains how, through an adaptation of a probabilistic PCA algorithm, a now 42-year-old machine was made to perform tasks traditionally considered extremely hardware-intensive. , then put together a project detailing what was used to generate the 8×8 Retro. Game sprites.
The initial model was built using modified Python code before being trained on approximately 100 sprites created using a custom spreadsheet on a modern PC. The generated parameter values are incorporated into a script using simplified logic to perform the generation and randomization parts of the algorithm, and thanks to that simplification, they can be translated into BASIC code that runs on Commodore 64. It's done.
That code, when run on an old machine, created a unique 8×8 image, which was then expanded to 64×64 (4K eats you to the heart) and displayed on the screen as output. Nick says it took about 20 minutes to create 94 iterations. This is a very fast result considering the processing power here (1.023MHz CPU and his 64KB of RAM).
got it. This means that the output may be quite simplistic by modern stable diffusion-based AI image generation standards, and much of the hard work was performed on modern machines. But the fact that the little Commodore 64 can be a part of it makes the process downright impressive.
My favorite part of the entire project is the bill of materials list at the bottom of the page. This is, uh, the equivalent of one Commodore 64 and nothing else. The sprites themselves are attractive, with models that look like they were pulled straight out of an actual retro game.
I doubt Meta or OpenAI will be investing heavily in truckloads of relatively old computing power like Nvidia's H100 GPUs anytime soon, but this is an attractive project. , a great example of how creative thinking brought old hardware into the modern era.
The real question here is: Does this make the Commodore 64 an AI PC? Well, it doesn't fit Microsoft's definition given that it doesn't have an NPU with at least 45 TOPS of processing power, but it does have a nice keyboard to add a handy Copilot sticker to.
It may not be the real thing, but given what it accomplished here, I think this little machine deserves at least a gold star for the good job it does.
