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Gareth's Downstairs Computer
<headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 17/02/2018 14:59, Peter Flass wrote:
>> Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>> <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> On 16/02/2018 23:04, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>>> On 2018-02-16, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>>>> <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> On 16/02/2018 16:36, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On 2018-02-16, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On 2018-02-15, Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> [22 lines snipped]
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> The nostalgia is for the sights, sounds, and smells those days. I can still
>>>>>>>> recall leaning over the 1132 printer waiting for my printout to start.
>>>>>>>> We're also nostalgic for out first acquaintance with the wonders of
>>>>>>>> computers. Now every kid over 8 knows more than we did 50 years ago.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I consider that unlikely.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Agreed.  I can't accept that the creators of the Internet don't know
>>>>>> as much as the script kiddie who abuses it.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Too many doting parents think their kid is a computer genius
>>>>>> simply because he knows how to click a mouse.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I once contrated in a company where the meme that kids were
>>>>> ace on computers was held. The son of one of the directors had
>>>>> produced their first computerised product, all in machine code,
>>>>> and all typed in manually into a "Softy" PROM programmer.
>>>> 
>>>> Well, don't keep us in suspense.  Did it work?  Did it work well?
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Yes, it did work and sold well. Upgrading though was such a pain that
>>> they recoded in assembler *WITHOUT ANY COMMENTS* because, based on their
>>> experience with hexadecimal machine code, assembler was "self documenting"!
>> 
>> I think most of us started out writing impenetrable, commentless code. When
>> you're doing a student project it's A) small, B) completed quickly enough
>> that you usually don't forget how it's working C) keypunched/typed by you
>> D) run once and thrown away.  In my experience that's the biggest step from
>> student programming assignments to production work-the code may be complex
>> and had to be understood by lots of people, perhaps years later.
>> 
>>> 
>>> I was contracted to work on a range of PID controllers for fermentation
>>> vessels (Temperature, pH, Dissolved Oxygen, etc) and when I said that
>>> they should let it be done in C because of all the maths involved they
>>> declined, so I spent much time developing 32 bit arithmetic in 8 bit
>>> assembler, which took longer to do (and was thus more expensive) than
>>> had C been permitted.
>> 
>> So use assembler, but call routines from the C library ;-)
>> 
> 
> A refusal to buy the C compiler resulted in the lack of the C library.
> 
> It was ISTR a Hitachi 6303
> 
> 

Probably long before gcc, and/or you weren't allowed to install it.

-- 
Pete