IOCCC image by Matt Zucker

The International Obfuscated C Code Contest

1990 - The 7th IOCCC

Seventh International Obfuscated C Code Contest

View the index.html web page for the given winning entry for information on how on how to compile it and how to run the winning program. Look at the winning source and try to figure how it does what it does! You may then wish to look at the Author’s remarks for even more details.

This year, the Best of Show won a standing ovation at USENIX.

The Strangest abuse of the rules award was given this year to stress the fact that starting in 1991, entries should be shell-specific.

This year was the first year that we accepted ANSI C entries. It was interesting to note that the ANSI C entries were as a whole less portable than the K&R C entries. We hope that in future contests people will enter more obfuscated and challenging ANSI C programs.

We would like to thank Barbara Frezza (loving wife of Larry Bassel) for her role as official chef of the contest. Her opinions regarding some of the contest entries were appreciated.

Rules and results were posted to comp.lang.c, comp.sources.unix, and alt.sources. They have been made available on a wide number of USENET archive sites such as uunet.

Final Comments

IMPORTANT NOTE: See contact.html for up to date contact details as well as details on how to provide fixes to any of the entries. See also the IOCCC FAQ for additional information on the IOCCC.

Winning Entries of 1990 - The 7th IOCCC

Download all winning entries from 1990


Jump to: top