kar1181

I completely understand why things are going the way they are as our computing environment has become ever more hostile. But I am very nostalgic for the time where I would power up a Vic-20 and within seconds be able to get to work.

Teaching my daughter to program on a modern computer, we spend more time bootstrapping and in process, than we do in actual development.

This is by far the most Australian thing I've seen in years (expat :)). This is legit 'Straya.

As an aside, Capsicum (peppers / bell peppers), I struggled for years overseas with the terminology until I finally broke the habit. Same with using Eggplant and Zucchini in the UK (Aubergine / Courgette).

And just look at how much simpler it is compared to modern kids programming materials. The code is denser but there's less of it, and far far less bootstrapping.

I think that is the killer right now, the amount of barriers to moving pixels on the screen is very high relative to how it was for us on the 8bits.

I'm done. I'm still on my 2015 MBP, my next computer will be a Thinkpad.

I had a lot of trouble with Mojave and the crashing you are reporting is annoying. I’ve been using their test builds the past couple months with zero problems though.

https://sequelpro.com/test-builds

There's a nice video from The Obsolete Geek on the Pippin too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz05U67NecI

Shame he's really stopped making any new videos, between him and the 8-bit guy I think I have lost months in nostalgia.

I still own and love both :) I mentioned the A1200 because it was basically the apex of that line of computers (and indeed that entire approach to computing).

There's some great videos on Youtube (particularly the Computerphile ones) on the Tramiel era Atari computers. They are a great little machine to help learn computer organization on. They were powerful yet still relatively simple machines that you could fit in your head.

E.g. I love this one on linked lists where they write some 68k assembly and run it on a STE and Falcon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyG9S9nAlUM

As the comments below observe, I think the types and number of experiences built on the back of new (to mainstream audiences anyway) technology were transformative.

In 92 the Amiga 1200 came out, a wonderful computer with great hardware but unfortunately it never made it big. Four years later in 1996 mass market PCs were coming out with Pentium processors, 3dfx accelerators, high resolution bitmap displays, internet connections and powerful general purpose sound adapters.

Today we have orders of magnitude more computing power, but essentially they are powering the same experiences, albeit far more polished.

If we look back four years, 2014, not much has really changed. The big game releases indeed are the same games (in the 90s they'd have been called mission packs).

The magic of experiencing something completely brand new, completely alien and magical, has gone away. Though, I am hopeful VR/AR is going to deliver that again. I don't know how far off it is, but it would be fitting if it's Carmack and Abrash behind it. Again.

We owe a lot to John Carmack in many ways - but I hope one of his enduring legacies will be the amount of programmers he inspired with both the games he helped make, and the code he made available. It helped many of us to get started somewhere.

I never ended up going into games myself, but in no small part I owe my career to him.

As well as the Doom book, his plan files are a fascinating time capsule to go back over, particularly if you 'came of age' during that golden age of PC games development.

https://github.com/ESWAT/john-carmack-plan-archive

Agreed, it's one of my favourite books of all time.

I get where this is coming from - but to be honest the main thing I want to lock down on my ipad is just not let them fire up youtube. You can't restrict certain apps from being opened.

Restricted mode works mostly how I want. I have a bunch of suitable games I'm happy for the kids to play with without me hovering around. But every time I let them use an ipad I have to remove youtube if it's on there, as they are only allowed to use that when I'm watching with them.

I was thinking about this the other day when I first started reading the Coffee Lake reviews. This thing runs toasty. Yeah it's fast, but it's hot enough to boil water faster than a US kettle.

I hope the next step on Zen really closes the gap. It's only then we're going to be set for some real innovation from intel.

No mention of the word upgrade anywhere. A pro computer needs to be re-configurable after purchase.

There's a train out of London Euston that will get you there in ~ 30 minutes.

He gets nearly no money from the dead tree version (4%) and about 35% from the eBook.

I hate drm but I want to put money into things I want more of. So I held my nose and paid for the eBook. I hope drm free emerges later though.

Source https://twitter.com/fabynou/status/905856105003155457 and https://twitter.com/fabynou/status/905857276174413824

Agree, indeed barriers to entry in computing generally is getting lower and lower all the time. The issue is that computers are so good now that the need to 'play around with them' is getting less and less. But for those of us that remember peeking and poking memory addresses and programming by trial and error can recognise how good we have it today.

I have been reading Fabien's book over the past few nights and it has been enormous fun.

Programming for most of us has moved a long way from the metal our code eventually executes on. And it's quite fun to go real low level and understand at an almost atomic how to make a computer do what you want it to do.

That's why this (and Michael Abrash's earlier Graphics Black Book that served as inspiration for this)is so much fun. As an kid who grew up playing games on these machines at that time it all seemed like magic. With quality documentation and the power of nostalgia you can now fully understand (and appreciate) what the likes of Carmack achieved in the early 90s on these machines and now we too can go in and hack around and achieve the same results.

I hope the book does well and Fabien can do the proposed 486 and Pentium companion editions.

Private landlord.

Going from the UK to the US was like stepping back in time when it came to banking. I remember complaining about some aspects of UK banking - it's going to take a day for my transfer to complete!?! Now we have faster payments in the UK which complete in hours at most.

Meanwhile in the US I still had to pay my rent with a physical check because that was easier than figuring out the weird 'pay anyone' implementation my bank had.

Taylor had an immense impact both direct and indirect on the nature of computing as we know it today, it's a little sad he's not better known.

Dealers of Lightning does a great job detailing his role in it all - https://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-Computer... that along with soul of a new machine really capture the spirit of that 60s/70s generation of computing.

My first reaction is to think - I hope my girls can take inspiration from Sabrina.

But taking a second to think about it, she's an inspiration to _everyone_. She just got on with it and built a plane. Starting something, finishing something - and at that age - is impressive. Never mind all the talents she appears to have.

Thank you so much - love this stuff.

I feel like there needs to be a sequel or at least epilogue to masters of doom when the dust finally settles on all this.

Having lived in both the UK and US I find the cost of medicines very hard to understand here. For example in the UK I can buy a ventolin inhaler for £10 over the counter (if I went to the Doctor it would be free). But in the US, an inhaler costs me $60 (with insurance).

Why is it that much more expensive here?

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And thank you massively for that work!

I'm not on the forgive train yet, but with the Apple computer ecosystem (as in things that look and behave like a PC-esque device) becoming increasingly hostile, I'm actually seriously considering going back to Windows.

The deal breaker is having a unix shell. I have worked on a system with a native unix environment for a decade and a half, going back to to the windows shell is not an option.

Thankfully, the Linux Subsystem for windows works pretty well already and with some further iteration I think it could become viable for most of my development needs.

When that happens I don't feel any loyalty to apple and will happily move over.

Love that there's an Atari ST and ZX emulator running inside of this.

If you run a small business and don't need a full blown windows setup - nor want to figure out linux it's perfect. We have folks who come in and do work and all they need is chrome.

You can imagine slightly more complex work requirements, but remix (and chromebooks) fit the bill perfectly. And most importantly, they are cheap to setup and manage.

Muscle & Strength LLC. | Columbia, SC | Frontend (UI/UX) Engineer | Full-time, ONSITE

Muscle & Strength is one of the largest and fastest growing fitness websites in the USA. Our goal is to help our 200,000+ daily visitors reach their fitness and physique goals by providing them with free workout routines, videos, articles, nutrition advice and expert guides. In addition to some of the best fitness content available online, our rapidly expanding Store stocks over 8,000 nutritional and fitness products which we ship to over 60 countries from our HQ in Columbia SC.

We are looking to fill a critical Frontend (UI/UX) Engineer position with a passionate technology enthusiast eager to learn and take advantage of new technologies. The UX Developer is responsible for using the latest technology to create amazing user experiences across multiple web-based devices and platforms including mobile, tablet and desktop.

To read more about the job and apply please visit: http://smrtr.io/BcwVcg Updated resumes and cover letter can also be sent to careers@muscleandstrength.com