Hackers and hobbyists involved in DIY electronics are likely to be familiar with the fundamental “Blink” program for Arduino modules that simply turns an LED on and off.
The challenge put to hardware tinkerer Artful Bytes was to create the smallest possible version of this routine.
The solution started with a “completely impractical” AI and cloud-based approach, before switching to an RTOS, then writing efficient code in C, and finally writing machine code directly, achieving a smallest size of 799 bytes.
However, the YouTube video’s bold title of “I Shrunk Blinky to 0 Bytes” is explained at the end with a trick: eliminating the microcontroller and microcode entirely and using analog hardware.
