Lost 1983 programming language resurrected by retro computing YouTube channel | Hacker News Reader

Lost 1983 programming language resurrected by retro computing YouTube channel

thenewstack.io

71 pointsMilnerRoute36 comments

I watched all of that. Begrudgingly. So much video time.

A decade ago it would have been a text format blog post with screenshots and downloadable binaries, and perhaps the occasional demo video. The same amount of information could be consumed in 5 minutes.

Now we need to watch hours of overproduced youtube videos, because that's the way "creators get paid".

We should have gotten micropayments to work in browsers instead.

Google really did a number on the web.

Watching YouTube is essentially running a proof-of-work algorithm for someone else

The local sci-fi/anime convention required artists who wanted to book a table to share videos of them producing their art.

Because otherwise people would show up with stable diffusion renders? Wow.

One of the best comments I’ve read on HN. Thank you.

Retro Recipes is entertainment, you’re meant to settle in and enjoy the personality that the host brings and the story that’s he’s presenting.

It’s not meant to be a TLDR minimal words fact delivery post.

There's enjoyment to be had in a great text blog post. And there's often milking in a youtube video.

But this is a video.

Yes?

Before movies were invented, we had books. There is value in each

Well, just want to point out that not all content creators do this. I have a channel and I make videos that are to the point and scripted. It probably won't interest you much but just saying that it IS possible to do it. I record a concise script AHEAD of time and the sync the recording to the script. And I still make money off it.

So yeah, youtube videos CAN be concise, but I have actually two explanations for why many are not:

1. Most people want to put in mid-roll ads

But that can't be the only reason -- if it were then a few creators could take over the market by making concise videos. So here's the second reason:

2. Many people watch YouTube for entertainment, not for learning information and they like to see long-form videos because they also want the pseudo-social interaction of watching their favourite creators.

It doesn't appeal to me personally but it is what it is.

> Now we need to watch hours of overproduced youtube videos,

But we don't. Plenty of people just ignore all that stuff, and there remains an impossibly vast volume of old and new content to consume in other forms. I've probably watched a total of 3 hours of Youtube since it launched, and I don't feel even a little bit less informed for that.

Would you really be worse off if you did something else with your time? Since you seem to prefer text, I'm sure there remain many stimulating blog posts (and books!) you haven't yet read.

If people find that sharing their little hobby efforts by video is easier or makes for better inspiration, it's not coming at some cost to you.

It's a different medium. Among both content creators and content consumers, some people prefer it, some don't.

Amen. If I can’t read it I’m not likely to watch a video about it.

> We should have gotten micropayments to work in browsers instead.

Sadly that would have only accelerated the enshittification. Commercial interests are what turned the web into slop. Remember when Usenet was originally rendered useless after succumbing to spam? That's the web as of 2024, and why we can't have nice things.

Perhaps you're right, perhaps not.

It feels like the mostly non-commercial web is like a fever dream now. I miss it.

> Remember when Usenet was originally rendered useless after succumbing to spam?

Yes, but then we repurposed it as a medium for distributing buffy the vampire slayer eps from some guy with a big sat dish who intercepted internal transmissions to local tv stations, so what we could see the next ep half a day in advance.

The purpose of a video like this is not to deliver data.

Do you also spend 12 minutes smelling flowers and then complain that the gardener could have sent you a txt that said "they smell like flowers" so much more efficiently?

My point is that things that would previously have been 5 minute blog posts now are e.g. 90 minute video odysseys, and the primary cause is that's the way "creators get paid".

I think this is bad for human progress.

You had no point.

A blog post and a video are 2 different things.

Shitter still has many many 5 minute reads if you only want that. They exist, and in greater numbers than ever, right now, today, despite "how creators get paid".

The fact that you only want a soylent pill doesn't mean that a sit-down meal is some waste of time.

I feel like you are misrepresenting what I'm saying; perhaps on purpose, perhaps not.

Either way, I don't want to continue this conversation. Good bye.

You're saying (at least as anyone seems to be able to determine; I don't want to correct you on what you're saying)

> Instead of blog posts, we have videos

They're saying

> In addition to blog posts, we have videos (we still have blog posts)

For what it’s worth I agree with the sentiment that inflated video fluff is very annoying and useless

Welcome to the attention economy, where we make people watch ads to doomscroll the latest drivel, hopefully diverting their attention to buying more senseless crap rather than improving their situation or the plight of humanity in general.

Can you imagine the positive impact on the world if just a fraction of that screen time was devoted to just making the people near you smile?

Calling it an odyssey is generous. It feels like the info is deliberately buried beneath intros, the video creator begging for me to like, subscribe and of course, a sponsored placement. Not to mention the platform ads and sea of recommendations.

This is the worst when I simply want to read the documentation, but Google attempts to serve me "tutorials". I have never derived value from programming tutorial videos.

That is a generation gap as well, it appears younger folks don't read, everything must be video now.

The modern maybe-AI generated, definitely SEO optimized method of writing where they spend 5 paragraphs restating the same thing in different ways when it could have been said in two sentences is unbearable.

Have one of the LLMs summarise the LLM-generated pablum? Do this a few times and you have a new version of the old 'Chinese/Russian Telegraph' game where a group of participants whisper a message around in a circle.

Here's the manual... https://archive.org/download/microtext-user-guide-from-perif...

Here's the disk file you can load into your emulator... https://archive.org/download/microtext-user-guide-from-perif...

Weird that the photo of the eBayed disk is a Maxell CF2 - a 3in disk! These were standard on the Amstrad 8-bits (CPC/PCW) and the Sinclair Spectrum +3, after Amstrad bought the rights to the Spectrum, but I’d never seen them on a C64.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_1581#:~:text=The%2...

Yes, that’s 3.5in. The picture in TFA is of a _3in_ disk.

3.5” disks were extremely common. Everything from Atari STs to programmable keyboards supported them. Plus they were the standard in PCs for a very long time.

What the GP saw was 3” a disk (ie half an inch smaller). Those came with a harder plastic shell and were a lot less common except for a few specific systems (like the aforementioned Amstrad 8bit micros).

That’s a very good spot!

I know a few other systems outside of Europe had 3 inch disks, for example the Nintendo Famicom Disk System. But the FDS disks were intentionally different again to those Maxwell disks.

Like yourself, never seen 3” disks on the C64 before.

The language is MicroText (used to program the Commodore), for those who don't want to have to go to the article to find out that much.

Thank you.

I scanned the article, not a single line of code sample.

Moving on…

A better title would be "Former Star Wars actor and retro computing enthusiast Christian Simpson (Retro Recipes) finds lost programming language."

With a link to the source YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvSlWLgXcsU

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