ChristopherDrum

Author here. You've intrigued me with this product, to say the least. As I get more experience with the productivity classics under my belt, I absolutely intend to branch out into titles like you've mentioned. That's assuming I can find the stuff though!

Author here. Thank you very much for your very kind words. I'm quite happy to hear that I was able to make reading about a database fun; "make it not boring" is my personal goal with the posts. It's nice to have confirmation I've achieved that for someone. I hope I can continue to build something you enjoy.

Oh wow, you're right! I see now that under MAME options there is a "Slot Devices" that has a printer selection option. I overlooked that I guess, thinking it was unrelated to printing. I'll need to dig into CP/M-80 configuration options more and see if I can get it talking to the emulated printer. Thank you very much for the heads-up!

Ah, of course, FileMaker. How could I forget the system that got me started on the development career path?!

Thank you, I'm glad you liked the article.

Hopefully someone more learned than myself about modern database programming will chime in. I'm not sure what current system offers both the database and development features in such a seamless package. That said, on the Mastodon post for this article, I was told, "Learning dBASE isn't for naught" and was directed to https://xharbour.org/ as a modern dBASE/Clipper implementation. (haven't had a chance to try it yet, personally)

Since someone else posted my article instead of me, I felt compelled to clarify who I am. Just trying to navigate social media waters to the best of my ability.

Author here. Thank you :)

Author here. My timing is impeccable!

Author here, and thanks for reading. I'm glad to hear stories from a developer POV about those days. It's interesting uncovering subtle interface changes as I investigate various applications. It makes sense to me to not use Return for fields, especially when fields could gradually accommodate longer and longer blocks of text. Being able to naturally type multiple paragraphs, say for a "Notes" field in a database, would make sense.

Happy I could help!

The HN community seemed to enjoy my previous post about Deluxe Paint. I cover all productivity software genres and hardware, which has kept me busy for a while. This week, I've circled back around to the Amiga, looking at Scala Multimedia MM300.

In addition to learning Scala, I discuss the IFF file format, a little about ARexx, do some genlocking, write a poem in tribute to a UI/UX stalwart workhorse, and give instructions on using a modern smartphone as a video source into WinUAE for Scala graphic composition that you can use in a Twitch/Discord livestream. Truly, a little something for everyone. I hope HN enjoys it!

https://stonetools.ghost.io/scala-amiga/

Thank you, I'm really happy you enjoyed it!

I got to know this software by trying to predict rain over two weeks, putting it head-to-head-to-head against my own intuition and a coin flip.

Applescript; first trying to automate mundane work tasks, then later to build simple GUI apps. That led into more robust Applescript Studio work, which led into learning Objective-C through Big Nerd Ranch and the book/class by Aaron Hillegass. That was all pre-iPhone. When the iPhone released, suddenly my Objective-C hobby skills were in hot demand. And that's how I became the mediocre developer iOS engineer I am today.

I had just referenced him in my latest blog post, so he was already top-of-mind when I heard the news. I couldn't NOT write about it.

I tried to read a mix of things, especially "classics I never got around to." I didn't meet my personal target of 30 books (got sidetracked writing my blog), but definitely read things that stuck with me.

Notable and beautiful

- "The Nickel Boys" by Colson Whitehead

- "Blind Sight" by Meg Howrey

- "The Dispossessed" by Ursula K. LeGuin

Non-fiction

- "Workflow"

- "Game Engine Black Book: Wolfenstein 3D"

- "Debugging: The 9 Indispensible Rules for Finding Even the Most Elusive Software and Hardware Problems"

The rest (all first-time reads)

- "Absolution" by Jeff Vandermeer (I enjoyed it but it was kind of unnecessary)

- "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte (I don't get the fascination with it)

- "Strange Pictures" by Uketsu (odd)

- "Starship Troopers" by Heinlein

- "Rendezvous with Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke

- "Ubik" by Philip K. Dick

- "Mickey 7" by Edward Ashton

- "Fugitive Telemetry" and "System Collapse" by Martha Wells

- "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson (I was surprisingly into it)

- "Glass Houses" by Madeline Ashby

- "Cover Her Face" by P.D.James

- "The Crystal Shard" by R.A.Salvatore (I needed to see what Drizzt is all about)

- "James" by Percival Everett (maybe my biggest disappointment of the year)

- "Alien Clay" by Adrian Tchaikovsky

- "Some Desperate Glory" by Emily Tesh

- "Sea of Rust" by C. Robert Cargill

No no, I was just blindsided by my own feelings when I read that and thought it was kind of funny. Judging from the inexplicable downvoting that comment received (?!) apparently that wasn't clear. I always enjoyed Mastermind, though there is a line of attack on the solution that can render it a little boring. It still maintains a bit of a Wordle-like pleasure.

"Let's Make a Deal" was hosted by Monty Hall and is literally the Monty Hall problem.

I think the part that stings most about this article is when he says, "In my research I came across a boardgame called Mastermind."

My lived childhood is old enough to be someone's "research."

I shared this last month, and it seemed to resonate with people, so I'll share again and maybe new eyeballs will see it this time. I'm continuing to build a body of work on my retro productivity software blog, Stone Tools.

https://stonetools.ghost.io

Previous articles which resonated with HN were on Deluxe Paint and VisiCalc. The latest post, "HyperCard on the Macintosh," seems to be making the HN rounds currently. Bret Victor himself chimed in on the HyperCard article over on Mastodon, filling in some nice historical footnotes. https://posts.dynamic.land/@bret/115716576717006637

Unlike many (most?) other retrocomputing explorations, I specifically do not look at games nor do I tie myself to any particular machine, though I'm focused on the 1977 - 1995 period. I spend a minimum of two weeks with each productivity title, trying to learn it, building things with it, and generally trying to understand its approach to solving problems. I'd characterize my writing tone as casual, conversational, and decidedly light-hearted.

Each piece of software (so far, knock on wood) gets me thinking about some other aspect of related computing history, so I explore that as a tangent. With the Superbase article, I talked about "the paperless office." With the VisiCalc article I considered its impact on less obvious industries, notably hog farming.

I hope the passion and effort I put into the articles comes through. If you're interested in computing history beyond just the games I think you'll find something of interest on my blog. "This Week in Retro" did a segment about me and my various projects as well, if you're curious to get an overview of what I'm all about (link is queued up at the start of the segment) https://youtu.be/UHYscl1Ayqg?si=7JM1sZagjoqvPjk2&t=2137

Author here. Since posting the article so many people have shared their similar stories with me, though not yet with your public speaking angle. I knew HyperCard had influence, but I don't think I was quite prepared for just how much influence it had over this many people. Thank you for sharing!

Author here, I'm glad you enjoyed it. HyperTalk and Pascal are obviously very different beasts, I'm sure it was difficult to context switch between the two! For HyperCard stack developers, that resource fork was kind of a blessing, because we didn't need to wonder, "Where is my data?" It was right there in the stack itself, making it super-portable and easy to share. That comes with all of the downsides you might imagine, as skills and needs increased. But it was also a very welcoming environment for the development-curious.

I never found anything like HyperCard that predated HyperCard; it really did seem to be borne from a special burst of insight. I could be wrong though, because as soon as something is declared "the first" someone invariably finds a earlier protoype from PARC or somewhere.

Presentation software definitely feels similar, especially with its card-and-buttons metaphor. Its intentionality is obviously quite different, but I just did a quick look and it seems like there is VBA scripting available in PowerPoint. Maybe the distance between it and HyperCard isn't the vast gulf I thought. Even if that's the case, then it really only supports your conclusion, "We really haven't progressed that much more." That sense of stagnation gnaws at me, TBH.

Thanks for reading and sharing your story.

Author here. Thanks for sharing this with the HN community. For those wondering if this is worth reading, I've written a click-baity title to entice you, "HyperCard vs. Vibe Coding" (though it's only one very small part of the article, it is discussed)

There is a substantial literate program not mentioned in the article: Inform 7. (a natural language, interactive fiction programming language) https://github.com/ganelson/inform

From the README "Inform is itself a literate program (written with inweb), one of the largest in the world. This means that a human-readable form of the code is continuously maintained alongside it: see Inform: The Program"

Great to know, thank you for the investigation.

That worked for you? I was having a devil of a time getting Feedreader to bring in that feed. I also had never touched Feedreader until last night and might have done something dumb. Inoreader did bring in the feed, but only after I "tricked it" (?) by doing a search for the feed; it wouldn't accept the rss URL. It all felt very mysterious and opaque.

I got word in the Ghost forums that there may also be an RSS feed bug, which I'll look into and see if that applies to this case.

My pleasure!

Thanks! I don't actually know anything about how Ghost blogging platform interacts with RSS feeds, but I get a small amount of traffic from personal aggregation services. I guess I kind of thought RSS is enabled, but I don't use it so I honestly don't know. I'll look into it and see if there's some setting or toggle switch somewhere I need to flip.

Thanks for the kind feedback, and I'm happy you felt resonance with those words. I use tons of Internet Archive material, but also stuff from various retro enthusiast sites which focus on specific hardware platforms. Lots of books, I look through YouTube for interviews, and include my own personal history with the machines and genres (I don't want the blog to read like a passionless how-to manual). If I had the physical space for a hardware collection I'd do that, but alas. No interviewing of my own, just research into existing interviews up to present day. The main point is really to let the software speak for itself and see if it and I can be friends.

Thanks, I hope you enjoy the series!