What's this about?
A writeup of a full N64 game decompilation completed in 84 days — taking a shipped binary and recovering C source that recompiles to a byte-identical result.
What is a "matching decompilation"?
Not just readable code that behaves the same, but source that, when compiled with the original compiler and flags, produces *exactly the same bytes*. That is a much stricter goal, and it is the standard in this community because byte-identical output proves you understood the original rather than merely reimplementing it. It also means fighting the compiler's quirks — reordering statements until the register allocation matches.
Why is it worth noticing?
HN 189 points, 121 comments
- 84 days is fast by the standards of this hobby, where projects routinely run for years.
- Decompilation projects are one of the clearest places where AI assistance has changed timelines, which the thread explores.
- It is also a preservation activity: matching decompilations are how these games survive their hardware.