Also that thinking about string matching problems isn't good for my mental health. I had horrible nightmares on the road to my O(m) good suffix rule. Very hard not to go a little mad over iterating countless ideas and string matching scenarios in your head... on the train, on the pot, laying in bed trying to sleep.

Btw. digital tablet with pen input is gold thinking about algorithms, as you get modifying your scenarios in place endlessly and copy and paste over paper + pencil.

Same. I implemented it, IIRC, on my Amiga 2000 and compared it to the Manx C library builtin. Which wiped the floor with my BM implementation. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was so much faster that I didn't even bother trying to optimize mine, I just threw up my hands.

It may have been on an HP9000s2xx machine instead of Amiga.

Taught me that hand optimized assembly can beat clever algorithms.