April 28, 2026
AI homies, retro drama
Show HN: My friend and his AI homies wrote SGI Indy emulator in Rust
AI helped build a retro computer comeback, but the comments came for the credits
TLDR: A developer says AI helpers played a big role in building a working emulator for a famous 1990s computer, and that alone got people talking. The comments quickly turned into a mix of nostalgia, praise, and a sharp argument over who deserves credit and whether the post even belonged on Show HN.
A hobby project about reviving an old Silicon Graphics computer somehow turned into a tiny internet soap opera. The creator showed off IRIS, a Rust-based emulator that can boot old IRIX operating systems, run graphics, and even get online — all with heavy help from AI tools like Claude and Gemini. In plain English: they got a dead-era 1990s workstation pretending to live again on a modern PC, and the crowd immediately split into two camps: "wow, this rules" and "wait, who actually made this?"
The biggest burst of drama came from one brutally dry comment pointing out that Show HN is supposed to be for something you made, then twisting the knife by noting that someone else had already posted it 26 days earlier. Ouch. That turned the vibe from retro-computing victory lap into a mini debate over ownership, credit, and whether "my friend and his AI homies wrote it" is charming honesty or a cheat code for internet clout. It's the kind of nitpick that Hacker News commenters live for.
Then there was the nostalgic side quest: one commenter instantly wanted to run hinv on IRIX and started reminiscing about digging up old IRIX CDs like a tech archaeologist raiding the attic. Another simply dropped a wholesome "very cool", which in nerd-comment terms is basically a standing ovation. The result is a perfect comment-section cocktail: a little gatekeeping, a little awe, and a lot of amused disbelief that AI-assisted vibe coding just brought a vintage machine back from the grave
Key Points
- •IRIS is a Rust-based SGI Indy emulator developed with assistance from Claude and Gemini.
- •The emulator currently boots IRIX 6.5 and IRIX 5.3, with IRIX 6.5 reaching multiuser mode and supporting networking functions such as ping, telnet, and ftp.
- •Graphics support includes X11 and Newport (REX3), with working mouse and keyboard input.
- •Optional Cranelift-based JIT compilers are available for MIPS-to-x86_64 translation and for the REX3 graphics pipeline.
- •The project includes development-focused features such as copy-on-write disk overlays, headless mode for CI/automation, port forwarding, and configurable build flags.