TI-H: Continuing wiht the old computer stuff.
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TI-H: Continuing wiht the old computer stuff.
since everyone is giving their sob stories aobu thaving old computers,
etc., ill give mine too.
i got a Packard Bell 80286 machine with 2MB ram and a 40MB hard drive
in 1989. That is the computer i learned to program on when i was 7.
that is the computer i programed in C, QBASIC, Turbo PAscal and assembly
. That was it. I am still on that computer now. i am typeing this
message from it. I do this by necessity, not by chjoice, as i have no
other computer. I learned optimization, etc. by necessity, not because
i wanted to. now i recognise the importance of learning on this
terrible machine, as someone else pointed out (sorry, cant remember
who.) i like the Z80 in the TI-85 because it is so low lwevel taht i
cant rely on newer instructions and hardware acceleration and stuff taht
i have to code fast, tight, and intuitively. I cant rely on
having 64MB to let my programs sprawl out. i have to cram it into 32K,
and less in fact. The same thing was taught to me by my 286. On
manday, i am getting a new computer, and that is what im putting linux
on. It wil be my first computer that runs over 12Mhz. i hold this in
a sort of pride (the story that is) because i know use a 12Mhz when
300+Mhz are common. I think that now i have hacked my 286 to its max,
and so choos the move on. I am connected to the newt right now with
2400baud modem, and i get by. when i get the new one, ill have a 36.6K
modem to connect to the net. i think that getting use to the small and
old computers and systems allows us to better appreciate the resources
on newer computers. ill still code in the fastest, smallest, and most
effective way possible, even though i will have tons of ram to spread
out on, tons of clocks to use up on slow code, and i will be a better
programmer for it.
hank you for your time, and i know that this is not precisely the right
list to send this too, but oh well. sorry BR. (i did talk about the
Z80 a bit, didnt' i?)
onathan KAus
kaus@cybrzn.com