The Watcom compilers still support OS/2, DOS (with PharLap), WIndows. I use them for work, they are great for embedded code.
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
I wear garlic around my neck to prevent coding. I get tempted every once in a while and dabbled in C, C+, C++ at work. I hated it. Just a lazy way to write Assembler. And today's chips compile and run the easy languages into fast enough packages. Low level redundant routines are great in the C family but you might as well write it in Assembler. But all of that for long ago in a far away galaxy. And my work was on "the big iron" which is a different world. I started with a PC XT clone, $1,500 in '83 or '84. That was a lot of money for a box back then. 20GB drives were huge. But software was simpler taking less space.
> 20GB drives were huge.
You mean 20MByte full-height 5.25" MFM drives...
You mean 20MByte full-height 5.25" MFM drives...
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
Yes, you are right. And the large old floppies. We've come a long way. And to quote Adm. Grace Murray Hopper we are just at the edge.
I met (Then) Captain Grace Hopper. I had my copy of the IBM Mark I Manual with me and asked her to autograph it. She asked "Where the hell did you get this! I wrote that book." Then she looked at the list of Navy Officers listed and started telling stories about them. I got the book surplus from our Library at work. It is rare.
45 years of Programming. Mainly Fortran and Assembly, some C and C++, embedded code. 40+ years ago one of my Teachers told me that I'll always be a bit twiddler. He's right.
45 years of Programming. Mainly Fortran and Assembly, some C and C++, embedded code. 40+ years ago one of my Teachers told me that I'll always be a bit twiddler. He's right.
raid
Dad Photographer
Brian- you are a very talented person.
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
Meeting Grace Murray Hopper puts you in the stratosphere. Wow! I am impressed. She was, and is, major. The closest I can come to all of that is that I have a "Greenie" a real one. I had many offers for it when I was working but brought it with me as my prize from my years as a scribe. I have the more recent booklet type "Greenies" but this is a real, green one and folding. ;o) Amazing the crap that is important to us, huh? LMAO Never had the plastic pocket protector or glasses patched with adhesive tape, though.
Pál_K
Cameras. I has it.
There’s a photography angle to this, skip to the last paragraph if you want to avoid geekiness.
While attending UCLA in the early 1970’s (I graduated from there with a Bachelor degree in Mathematics and Computer Science), I learned and wrote IBM 360 Assembly Language. Loved it. At the time, UCLA had what were two supercomputers of the day: the IBM 360/91KK at the Campus Computing Network (CCN) in Boelter Hall and another in the UCLA Medical Center. The 360/91 was water-cooled and had a whopping 4 megabytes of main memory (magnetic core type memory)
I also programmed a PDP-12 (a dual PDP-8/Linc-8 mix) at the Medical Center - also in assembly language. Lots of fun.
Nearby was a computing service bureau in Westwood called Logi-Cal. They had a Univac 1108. Fantastic architecture and a beautiful assembly language.
Although for most of my 45-year career I programmed in C, the PDP-11 and VAX-11 machines were also in my life and I programmed a lot of them in assembly language. I have my own PDP-11, a UNIBUS machine with real switches and lights on the console, disk drives, console, etc. I’ve done all the hardware maintenance on this machine.
I also had the opportunity to write microcode for HP calculators (the 41C). Not user code - microcode for the processor.
With the exception of writing code for the ARM-7 - an embedded firmware job I had about 10 years ago - nothing recent excites me. Today’s computers are merely appliances.
So, in 1974, Donald Knuth gave a lecture at UCLA which I attended. Naturally I had my Pentax SP500 with me, as I took it everywhere. After not having the foresight to ask him to sign my Art of Computer Programming vol. 1, at least I had photos of him at the lecture. This was at a time I was doing my own B&W developing and printing. Usually my developing was event-free. However, I had just experienced and correctly diagnosed that I was agitating the spool too rapidly, sometimes causing the film to come loose and stick together - ruining the images due to developer and fixer not being able to reach the emulsion. I spent some time diagnosing that… So, when it became time to develop the film with Donald Knuth on it, I was careful. When I finished the fix, put in water, poured that out, and opened the tank I got …nothing. No images at all on the roll. What happened? Yes, the camera was fine and I always ensure film is moving through it. As best as I can tell, my developer was totally exhausted. I had been too cheap to replenish it.
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
That is a terribly sad story.
Cameras, I started with the K1000, a brick that could take photographs and moved on to an ME Super. I still have both. Great cameras. In HS I did my own darkroom work and bought film in bulk and loaded my own cartridges, Plus-X and, woohoo!!, Tri-X. All that makes me love digital. That was when ISO 200 was amazing. Folks whine about that now.
I remember when the 360 was a step up from a 1401. We had the 16K big one. 12K was the standard. It is amazing now. I worked as a programmer for only my last 20 years. COBOL was for LibArts majors like me to find gainful employment. But Assembler was succinct and elegant. I am forever grateful to Adm. Grace Murray Hopper and her wonderful knowledge and super sense of humor. To mimic SNL, COBOL has been berry, berry good to me.
Cheers
Cameras, I started with the K1000, a brick that could take photographs and moved on to an ME Super. I still have both. Great cameras. In HS I did my own darkroom work and bought film in bulk and loaded my own cartridges, Plus-X and, woohoo!!, Tri-X. All that makes me love digital. That was when ISO 200 was amazing. Folks whine about that now.
I remember when the 360 was a step up from a 1401. We had the 16K big one. 12K was the standard. It is amazing now. I worked as a programmer for only my last 20 years. COBOL was for LibArts majors like me to find gainful employment. But Assembler was succinct and elegant. I am forever grateful to Adm. Grace Murray Hopper and her wonderful knowledge and super sense of humor. To mimic SNL, COBOL has been berry, berry good to me.
Cheers
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Once upon a time in the dark ages (around 1985), when I was working at NASA/JPL on digital imaging projects involving imaging radar, I went to a computer convention in Los Angeles and met John Warnock. We talked about some of the work I'd been doing, and ended up handing him some of my FORTRAN and C code ... basically personal project work on edge shading and blending, tonal distribution ... related to the image analytics I was trying to understand. I've always wondered if he used any of it...
I haven't written any code in at least 15 years and have little motivation to start again, but it was darn fun at the time. Twiddling a few buttons to get to the camera's service menu ... eh, haven't even been interested in that in longer than I can remember.. I do have the code sequence for the Olympus E-1 somewhere in my mess.
Hate digital? eh, no reason to. It's just a camera.
G
I haven't written any code in at least 15 years and have little motivation to start again, but it was darn fun at the time. Twiddling a few buttons to get to the camera's service menu ... eh, haven't even been interested in that in longer than I can remember.. I do have the code sequence for the Olympus E-1 somewhere in my mess.
Hate digital? eh, no reason to. It's just a camera.
G
I have 7 computers in arm's reach of me right now. Three of them were built to my specs, as in all custom boards designed for embedded work. One other- custom ordered for high-temperature work. I wrote the device drivers for these four.
40+ years ago I worked with the Texas Instruments Advanced Scientific Computer, the Vector version of the 360/91. The assembly language instruction set of that machine is the most advanced that I have ever used. I've done a lot of assembly language on a lot of processors, IBM 360, i960, MIPS, ARM, VAX, PDP, PIC, Intel, Atmel, Z80, and more. I miss heavy metal.
40+ years ago I worked with the Texas Instruments Advanced Scientific Computer, the Vector version of the 360/91. The assembly language instruction set of that machine is the most advanced that I have ever used. I've done a lot of assembly language on a lot of processors, IBM 360, i960, MIPS, ARM, VAX, PDP, PIC, Intel, Atmel, Z80, and more. I miss heavy metal.
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
This is degenerating fast. LOL When I worked in one huge shop a tech programmer got a bump in pay, promotion and huge amounts of praise for changing an MVC command to MVCL. It saved a lot of CPU time as it moved, IIRC, a million bytes at a time rather than one and this shop was about moving large amounts of data.
You could not find enough money to get me to code again. I was on call 24/7. by myself. A 3:00 AM call could be 20 minutes or 20 hours. I still have the manuals and all. I have never opened that box since leaving. I cannot even find my 0.5 mil pencil. I fart around with cameras now. Much, much more fun and on my schedule.
I have only three computers close, in this room. Four downstairs. You never know when you are going to need them.