Claude rebuilt a 1996 toaster screensaver, with pushback
Chasing a childhood itch for the exact 1996 After Dark Flying Toasters screensaver, the writer turned to Claude. It did a lot of good reverse-engineering work, but kept inventing details that needed pushback.
Done withClaudeSpotted· by HN user Backslasher· Oct 21, 2026
Result Released as AGPL on GitHub
“Claude Fable did a lot of good work, including some basic validation (spinning up a headless Chromium and grabbing console output and screenshots), but I was still needed in the loop.”
Spotted: found in the wild. Details are as reported by the source above and have not been independently verified.
What they did
The writer wanted to reproduce the specific 1996 version of the After Dark Flying Toasters screensaver, sprites, music, sound effects and engine logic included. They had Claude do much of the reverse-engineering work, including basic validation by spinning up a headless Chromium and grabbing console output and screenshots.
How it went
Claude did a lot of good work, but was big on magic-number-ing, patching, and assuming things, so most of the writer’s non-bug-report comments were pushbacks on it inventing stuff rather than going deeper.
Try it yourself with Claude
Reverse-engineer [an old screensaver/program] from its sprites, sound effects and binary so it runs in the browser. Validate your own work by spinning up a headless browser and checking the console output and screenshots as you go.
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