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Re: The lure of retro computing

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Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> writes:

> Only I feel sorry for the
> young programmers who have to jump straight to the complexities without
> having the luxury of understanding *everything* of a small
> microcomputer.

Micros are one thing, but I started with an IBM 1401.
Enlightened users avoided IBM's attempts at an OS and
programmed the machine without an OS in the way.
The manuals gave instruction timings, and the machine
made it's registers easily accessible.

Of course you don't need an OS for read a card, print a line,
read a tape record.  But the machines came with disks too.
You did your own record deblocking, disk file allocation,
invented your own access methods.

You really did know _everything_ going on in the machine.
But I'm not drawn to those machines, time has passed.
I can live without compiles taking minutes to hours.

I remember when computers first started dealing with
lower case.  I wasn't in favor.  Seemed to me, we had
way too many characters already.  You can communicate
fine without lower case.

Then people wanted proportional characters.  I felt the
same way, a crap load of computing just to stick a few
more characters on a line, and simple formatting using
spaces no longer worked.

Now computers even support left to right languages mixed
in with right to left in the same document.

Sometimes we are just too clever.  I had always hoped some
things would be too complex for computers and we'd
simplify our language(s) to deal with it.  Oh well.

-- 
Dan Espen

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Thread

The lure of retro computing RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-05-06 18:40 +0000
  Re: The lure of retro computing Bob Eager <news0002@eager.cx> - 2014-05-06 19:41 +0000
  Re: The lure of retro computing Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-05-06 22:59 +0300
    Re: The lure of retro computing despen@verizon.net (Dan.Espen) - 2014-05-06 16:19 -0400
      Re: The lure of retro computing Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-05-07 00:19 +0300
    Re: The lure of retro computing "G. Paul Ziemba" <paul+usenet@w6yx.stanford.edu> - 2014-05-07 06:06 +0000
    Re: The lure of retro computing Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2014-05-07 07:10 +0000
    Re: The lure of retro computing David Harmon <source@netcom.com> - 2014-05-08 20:38 -0700
      Re: The lure of retro computing Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-05-09 10:28 +0300
      Re: The lure of retro computing Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-05-09 10:08 +0100
  Re: The lure of retro computing Roger Blake <rogblake@iname.invalid> - 2014-05-06 21:09 +0000
  Re: The lure of retro computing Oregonian Haruspex <bob_davis_retired@yahoo.com> - 2014-05-06 22:29 +0000
  Re: The lure of retro computing Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> - 2014-05-07 06:39 -0700
  Re: The lure of retro computing Bob Eager <news0002@eager.cx> - 2014-05-08 18:14 +0000
    Re: The lure of retro computing Stephen Thomas Cole <usenet@stephenthomascole.com> - 2014-05-09 13:34 +0000
      Re: The lure of retro computing Bob Eager <news0002@eager.cx> - 2014-05-09 14:39 +0000
      Re: The lure of retro computing Bob Eager <news0002@eager.cx> - 2014-05-09 14:40 +0000

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