Real code, made into art

Code that changed the world, made to keep.

We draw the source code of famous programs, from Apollo 11 to Linux, as colored bars: one bar for every line. Then it is printed on a white tee or a mug, to wear, to drink from, or to give to someone who writes code.

See the sixteen pieces Put your own code on a mug

Printed and shipped by Redbubble to the EU and the US.

hello.c

main(){    printf("hello, world\n");}

Real code. Kernighan and Ritchie’s hello, world, 1978.One line becomes one bar. The color is the kind of token.The same bars, printed on a white tee and a mug.

How to read a piece

The color is the code.

Every line of the program becomes one bar. Indents stay, so loops and functions keep their shape. Most people see a pattern. Anyone who writes code sees a program.

Keywordif, return, int
Namemain, printf, x
String"hello, world"
Number0x5f3759df
Comment// what it does
Plain( ) { } ;

Worn. Poured. Given.

All sixteen pieces

Worn

A white tee with the bars across the chest. Quake III’s fast inverse square root, for the person who still talks about it.

Poured

An 11 oz ceramic mug, wrapped in the routine that lit Apollo 11’s engine. For the desk where the code gets written.

For the one who
wrote the code

Given

Every piece has its story here, so the gift comes with something to tell. Start from the person:

Start with six

The catalog

Apollo 11 ignition1969Coming soon

In 1969 this routine lit the lunar module engine. Don Eyles traced the name BURN_BABY_BURN to DJ Magnificent Montague.

Quake III inverse square rootComing soon

Greg Walsh wrote the fast inverse square root. The constant is 0x5f3759df. It shipped in id Software's Quake III and is often miscredited to John Carmack.

Zen of PythonComing soon

Tim Peters wrote the Zen of Python in PEP 20. The language hides the text in this.py behind a ROT13 puzzle.

RSS 1.02000Coming soon

In December 2000 Aaron Swartz, then 14, helped the RSS-DEV group write RSS 1.0. He was one author among many.

Bitcoin halvingComing soon

GetBlockSubsidy starts at 50 BTC and cuts that reward in half every 210,000 blocks.

Linux start_kernelComing soon

start_kernel is the function a Linux machine passes through as it boots.

Your own code

Your first commit. Your thesis. The hack that saved launch day.

Paste any code and see it as bars on a mug, in the same colors as the catalog.

Try it with your code

The people, then the program.

Who wrote each program, and why it mattered. One short history per piece.

Journal

Questions

What is Realcodeart.com?

Realcodeart.com is a catalog of sixteen famous programs, each drawn as one colored bar per line of source. The mug and the white tee carry only those bars.

What is printed on the mug?

Only the bars. The title, the credit, and any license notice stay on the page and are not printed on the object.

Who prints and ships the order?

Redbubble takes the payment, prints the ceramic mug or the white tee, and ships to the EU and the US. This site does not take an address or a payment.