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Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad!

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* Nomen Nescio:
> Brandon <noemail@c64.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Nomen Nescio wrote on Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:20:07 +0200 (CEST):
>> 
>> > Because you can possibly understand all of it.
>> 
>> That doesn't make it "better," just simpler.
>
> True simple is not always more "useful" but it is almost always "better".

If that were the case, a rock would be the pinnacle of technological 
evolution.

Of course, you refer to the KISS philosophy (Keep it simple stupid, 
annotations vary), which stipulates that a simple solution is usually better
than a complex one, but this is *provided they both solve the problem*. 
Exactly what is "simplicity" is up for debate. 

An old home computer is only "better" than a modern PC if the problem is
solved "equally well". And even then: You still have to explain why a C64
(Or a speccy) is better than a modern microcontroller, which isn't much more
complex but offers a wealth of practical benefits.

> There is value in computers as entertainment appliances and there is value
> in computers as vehicles for programming, learning, etc. For the latter
> something you can understand all of is infinitely more valuable than
> something you can't understand all of.

You're making a subtle error in your reasoning: You assume that you could
know "everything" about a C64 or a speccy. This is untrue. You may think
you know "everything" because you know the entire instruction set of the
CPU, and know the layout and meaning of all I/O, but that's just the tip
of the iceberg: You've drawn a line somewhere, saying "OK, every detail
below this is not important. I don't care how individual gates of the CPU
work, all I care about is that it executes my instructions". You're 
interfacing at the level between hardware and software, but that is a very
arbitrary decision. You don't know "all there is to know"; you only know
the tip of that iceberg, and you have decided that only the tip is worth
knowing.

If that level of interface would be all there is to know about a machine,
how is it that new hacks are still being found for 30-year old systems?
Apparently, that abstraction layer isn't as all-compassing as you thought.

On the other hand, you may argue, knowledge of those hacks aren't really
necessary to do any useful programming; your "abstraction layer" to the
computer is reasonably complete, but so are many abstraction layers.

There is a value in *abstraction layers* that you can entirely understand, but
exactly where this "abstraction layer" is being defined greatly depends on the
application. Your layer at the border between hard- and software makes sense,
but there are many others that make sense:

1) At the operating system level. The most important purpose of an OS is
   to offer a hardware-independant interface to applications. One may
   argue that the interface between kernel- and userland on, say, a Linux
   machine is all there is to know - and it would be just as valid as your
   statement.

2) At some library level. POSIX comes to mind; most computational problems
   can easily be implemented while strictly conforming to POSIX, which 
   would make it even independant of the used platform.

3) At a language level. You don't really need to know the intricate details
   of a CPU to write code; you can also write it in a higher-level language.

4) At a virtual machine level. Think java, think Android. The underlying
   virtual machine implementation doesn't matter at all (just like you don't
   care about the gates of your CPU).


My point is this: Your argument makes sense, but there are a LOT of 
abstraction layers where you could make exactly the same argument, and they
would all be equally true or valid.

-- 
Martijn van Buul - pino@dohd.org 

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Thread

Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! "ForeverRent" <hesacopontheedge@yahoo.com> - 2012-03-30 11:49 +0200
  Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! Martijn van Buul <pino@dohd.org> - 2012-03-30 10:25 +0000
    Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! J. Robertson <jkr7@juno.com> - 2012-03-30 08:41 -0400
  Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! "Clocky" <notgonn@happen.com> - 2012-03-30 19:43 +0800
  Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! "Bill Garber" <willy46pa@comcast.net> - 2012-03-30 08:22 -0500
  Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! Mike Lee <mike.lee8520@gmail.com> - 2012-03-30 14:44 +0100
    Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! Calum <com.gmail@nospam.scottishwildcat> - 2012-03-30 14:58 +0100
  Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! "Brian Gaff" <Briang1@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2012-03-31 08:50 +0100
  Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! Pekka Takala <pekka.NOtakala@pihSPAMtisoft.fi> - 2012-03-31 21:25 +0300
  Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! Andrew Wiskow <wiskow@gmail.com> - 2012-04-01 21:57 -0700
    Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! Martin Wohlauer <mwohlauer@yahoo.de> - 2012-04-03 10:29 +0200
  Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! Mentore <mentore.siesto@libero.it> - 2012-04-02 01:45 -0700
  Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! chad_lee <chad.the.ninja@gmail.com> - 2012-04-21 15:22 -0700
    Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! Andreas Kohlbach <april12.8.ankman@spamgourmet.com> - 2012-04-21 20:43 -0400
    Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! "J.B. Wood" <john.wood@nrl.navy.mil> - 2012-04-24 06:42 -0400
      Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! Martijn van Buul <pino@dohd.org> - 2012-04-24 11:57 +0000
    Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! Brandon <noemail@c64.invalid> - 2012-04-24 07:16 -0500
      Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> - 2012-04-25 00:20 +0200
        Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! Brandon <noemail@c64.invalid> - 2012-04-24 18:03 -0500
          Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> - 2012-04-25 12:24 +0200
            Re: Please throw away your old computers and buy a PC/Mac or iPad! Martijn van Buul <pino@dohd.org> - 2012-04-25 12:31 +0000
  jdifbo$d8t$1@speranza.aioe.org ForeverRent <hesacopontheedge@yahoo.com> - 2012-04-22 20:36 -0700

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