Re: The DOS 3.3 SYS.COM Bug Hunt

Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> writes:

I never used DOS as a programmer, so it wasn't nostalgic to me, but I
enjoyed seeing how simpler things were back then and how programs like
debug could help you to see what was going on.  I was reading about 6502
assembly recently and I became very interested in getting closer to that
simplicity.  The booklet author remarked that modern x86 assembly isn't
really meant for programmers, but compilers.  I had never really thought
of that, but it made a lot of sense to me.  So maybe I should indeed
look into an older, simpler machine to enjoy the low level of things.

My first computer was an Osborne I that I got on a swap.  I made a
hand-raised  copper curry pan for a guy who was buying a Mac for his
law student wife.  Macs were new, Osbornes already obsolete and
inadequate for the wife's course work.

I'm forever grateful that I started with the Osborne.  It had a real
manual, circuit diagrams available, Z80 CPU simple enough to learn
from bottom up.  Learned all the basic principles of how computers
operate -- intentionally obstructed from day 1 by Apple for Mac,
dismally more arcane for then-current 386.

So I learned BASIC, Z80 assembler, K&R C and elementary Lisp on the
Osborne.

Now there are so many complications in everything with a small
computer, insanely more difficult to beat up/understand the basic
principles in the forest of technical advances.

Thirtyfive+ years on, getting old, don't keep up. I can balance SU
carbs on a 1950s Jag but my mechanic plugs in a special purpose
computer and diagnoses my failed fuel filter from the driver's seat.
Ho hum.

--
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada