Reading Denthor's tutorials in a basement, the 90s, learning C++ and assembly. Pure joy getting thingslike a 3d cube and a 3d star field up on the screen.
Ask HN: What's your most nostalgic memory a life-long career with computers?
31–40 of 45 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's your most nostalgic memory a life-long career with computers?
#32root having the real powers, just send MOTD to all logged users: the system will reboot in 5 minutes...
Re: Ask HN: What's your most nostalgic memory a life-long career with computers?
#33Hearing the loading-sound of a game being read from tape to a ZX Spectrum (circa 82-86):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4umA3_9YNs
That sound is just so memorable, even more so than hearing the sound of a modem connect to the internet. (You could easily tell the difference between a 28k and 56k connection by hearing the modem responses.)
I've done a lot of things I'm proud of, like patching binaries, reverse-engineering games/tools to get extra lives or registered status, but hearing those noises? They take me back.
Re: Ask HN: What's your most nostalgic memory a life-long career with computers?
#34I began programming in 1968. 50 years later I can't think of anything I'm nostalgic about. There were some OK to Good times, but nothing stands out. I'd rather have done something else. I do recall first reading Tog's edition of Macintosh User Interface Guidelines as opening up my perspective. For lack of anything else I'd choose it.
I'm curious to hear about your 50 year career spanning some of the most important revolutions in computer history. What do you work on now, and how does it compare to what you worked on it 1968? How did people such as yourself get into computing in 1968? What was the availability of computers and what rules dictated human participation with computers? What improvement was the biggest leap forward? Where there any 'wi…
At the time I started, you couldn't get a degree in software engineering. "Software Engineering" wasn't even a thing. I took a course in programming for geologists just before I flunked out of Stanford. Later, I took an evening course in Pascal. Even later I took Stanford's online course in iOS programming. Whenever some new concept came out, the hardware/systems vendors had to prime the pump by educating everyone with manuals. Every new thing was so obviously superior, one eagerly sought books, magazine articles, or manuals to get on board. We all hauled ourselves up by our boot straps. It was an exciting time.
Back then computers filled huge rooms, and time was allocated by the second. "Nobody" knew how to program then, so it was easy to get a job programming for a contractor at NASA-Ames and later for the U.S.G.S.
The first thing I ever did was a FORTRAN IV program that contoured simulated lunar regolith data. These maps were crude line-printer maps with each character representing a depth.
The last major thing I did before I left the U.S.G.S. was an interactive color geologic map integrated with an ore-deposit database. That was about 1989. Since I left the U.S.G.S. in 1995, I've done website programming and "side projects." I'm currently working on a word processor for professionals engaged in a major writing project, one involving lots of source documents and notes. Like most side projects, the biggest problem is marketing.
I suppose everyone else would point to PCs as the greatest innovation. I disagree. For me it was the hugely powerful APIs Apple provided with the Mac. Before, you had to create nearly everything from scratch. It was revolutionary. As an application-programmer, the Mac's APIs were hugely empowering. I could now do things it would have taken a team a year or more to do.
I realize C is very popular and I mean no offense, but I hate it. It's prominence grates on my nerves. It's lack of discipline appeals to the worst emotionally immature tendencies among very young programmers and can lead to life-long bad habits. That is the perspective of an scientific-application programmer. I'm sure the world seems very different for folks focused on systems etc where C has advantages.
This has been rather long, but there were lots of questions to address. Thanks for the opportunity.
Re: Ask HN: What's your most nostalgic memory a life-long career with computers?
#3580s - I was 12, programming in AppleSoft Basic typing in assembly programs from InCider that added double hires graphics support to Basic. I wrote what would now be considered presentation creation software.
It was written mostly in basic but I also found another assembly language extension that let you load Print Shop clip art from Basic.
My next project was an Eliza (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA) clone. I hacked SAM (Software Automated Mouth) a voice synthesis program to work with the 80 column card and Prodos (long story).
I wrote a few other little programs but those two stand out. I learned some Assembly language and wrote some routines that were too slow for Basic.
Re: Ask HN: What's your most nostalgic memory a life-long career with computers?
#362002: Devised without a book what I later discovered was the MinMax algorithm (my father was quite unhappy when he discovered tic-tac-toe game trees penciled on the side of the staircase) and wrote a really terrible chess engine with it. That sparked a lifelong interest in programming. A couple years later, I had a blast implementing AlphaBeta (w/pruning), NegaScout, MTDf. Eventually got into NNs, which I used for le…
Do you still have any of this stuff sitting around? Particularly the FPGA part. If you do, I would love to see videos of this in action (not code). Would be absolutely awesome. Seriously! I don't care that it's from 2002, that's what makes me more interested if anything. Also... people are Very Interested™ in neural networking now. I am 100.0% sure that if you threw this info at a few companies they wouldn't mind wai…
The only thing I can find is one of the original versions of the chess engine. It's still running on a free web-host: http://blitzter.atspace.com/. Pardon the writing style of 16-year old me.
Unfortunately, I can't find any of the newer versions of the engine or the FPGA code. I wrote most of the newer versions in college, eight to ten years ago; the hard-drive for my desktop may be around my house somewhere, but it will take some time to find, setup, and search. You've piqued nostalgic interest, so I may just do that...
I'm currently running a small software agency in the Boston area that employs a couple developers. One of our larger clients integrates their AI-based product with larger customers' platforms, and my company does quite a few of the implementations. That has given me enough of a taste for now; hopefully we can pivot completely into that space one day. For now, I'm enjoying working at an arm's reach.
Re: Ask HN: What's your most nostalgic memory a life-long career with computers?
#3711 years old (1980-1981) learning to program a ZX spectrum in machine code (yes machine code - not assembler). No internet. Just a single thin "Z80 Machine Code Programming" book for reference, and nobody to ask for help. A roller coaster experience from deep despair to an ultimate high :-)
Re: Ask HN: What's your most nostalgic memory a life-long career with computers?
#38I began programming in 1968. 50 years later I can't think of anything I'm nostalgic about. There were some OK to Good times, but nothing stands out. I'd rather have done something else. I do recall first reading Tog's edition of Macintosh User Interface Guidelines as opening up my perspective. For lack of anything else I'd choose it.
Can I ask, what would you have rather done?
Re: Ask HN: What's your most nostalgic memory a life-long career with computers?
#39I began programming in 1968. 50 years later I can't think of anything I'm nostalgic about. There were some OK to Good times, but nothing stands out. I'd rather have done something else. I do recall first reading Tog's edition of Macintosh User Interface Guidelines as opening up my perspective. For lack of anything else I'd choose it.
Can I ask, what would you have rather done?
Contrary to popular belief, hind-sight is even more muddled and confused than the present : ) I really wanted to be an archeologist, but I thought it was too impractical. In general I was too "practical" in my life choices. I wish I had at least tried vagabonding at bit combined with writing, looking for something - adventure or I don't know what. That, however, it probably naive. Real world choices were much more difficult and uncertain and my memory is inadequate.
Re: Ask HN: What's your most nostalgic memory a life-long career with computers?
#4050 years. Somewhat different to most. Mixed hardware/firmware/software, niche talents matched to niche markets. And practically all self-taught. Along the way got a BS and most of an MS in CS but none of it was applicable to my career, nor required for it, except the one class I keep alive was the FSM class. Perfect for Hard Real Time Event Driven applications. My metier. Almost all of the 50 years qualifies as nostalgia, even current, because it has all been fun, all been coninuous learning, all been continuous invention, and except for some esoteric math in my current Audio DSP path there has never been a book about it.
1967-9 accidentally hired at Elliott Automation UK as comissioning technician, finding bad wires/doa components in their 4100 series mainframes as they came to the end of the production line, prep for shipping. Completely discrete hand built machines, right down to hand-woven 48K x 24b main magnetic core memory. No prior experience outside of hobby electronics, only 19, CS did not exist then. This experience probably seeded all my first principles of computing, I had to teach myself in intimate detail how a room sized computer works, and how to program it. Both good and bad.
1969-71 (I know, by decade, but my trajectory does not fit decades easily) design engineer at an EG&G UK subsidiary called Nuclear Measurements. Another accident. Made instrumentation for the two main Nuclear Fusion labs Daresbury and Culham. Got to climb around inside the Zeta Pinch 1MF capacitor and the Tokamac. By chance visited a PCB layout researcher using my old 4130 with vector graphics, thesis on rats nest automatic layout techniques.
1971-5 Another poach, this time into data communications world. I'll note here that although I was then a hardware nut, programming computers is always an essential skill to have. And also in those days of really tight resources, doing it efficiently was default, whatever Tony had to say about premature optimization - the code has to at least fit before it can be made to work. In this phase I even had to design and write an ASM a custom computer a bit more featured than a Z80, only in SSI 7400 series TTL. And in 8008 days, no Z80 when I started.
Still a big-eyed kid, somewhat bemused that folks wanted me to actually pay me to do all this learning. Learning that even today seems to be missing from CS/CE, at least as I can tell from graduate hires since then even up to today. Got very good at "Making it up as I went". There was no book, really, for what I was having to produce.
1975-89 moved to sister company in LA - poached again - got even deeper into data comms, designing Statistical Multiplexors and protocols for University time share computer centers. Employers made their $Ms but neglected to mention stock options to me. OTOH as a founder and tech lead I had a blast, and seeded a great dev lab culture around me, many of whom are still in touch.
1989-97 This was a really fun time; I and buddy did our own start up (Lone Wolf Technologies) based on a mission critical deterministic protocol we had dreamed up and a product using it to network MIDI synthesizers and controllers in large venues and pro studios. Moto 68HC11 box did 4 ports, glass fiber networking physical layer allowed up to 2 Km separation, multiple boxen, each with a mirrored virtual 16x2 config LCD onto the network as a compound entity (edit any box from any box), full soft topology routing and filtering and remapping. Yet more learning OTJ, and inventing. And the customer base was, well, rarified. Herbie Hancock, ELP, INXS, that rarified. Not actually a Good Thing as it transpired. No volume. But oh what fun. Then Paul Allen invested. A long story not for here. But moved us all to Seattle.
1998-9 designed a FPGA for autonomous isochronous multi-medial FireWire transport (AFAIK the only one that did not funnel channel data through the CPU). Was missing hardware, this was an intense but ultimately successful gig, eventually made its way back into music world as control surface driver/interface.
2000-7 Second time Lone Wolf, soon renamed SingleStep, designing a graphical programming/delivery platform aimed an large scale network management. Again great OJT learning and invention but customer base not so much fun.
2008-present now this one is a fun employer with a fun product. Not just fun to my nerd core - fun is their product. I refer to Nintendo. Worked on Audio engines for WiiU and Switch.
The two big gaps: "Consulting Years". Nail biting, more like. No nostalgia for those.
So, not your typical career path. No front end / back end / full stack crowded job market. I'd have been out of that and unemployable probably 20 years ago if that were the case.