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Show HN: The operating system I built as my high school project (2016)

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Re: Show HN: The operating system I built as my high school project (2016)

#61
post #40

For my high school senior theology project, we were instructed to select a modern news event, categorize it into one (or more) of the seven deadly sins, and then give a class presentation. I miraculously convinced my group to choose the Microsoft antitrust case since I had just read the Wired cover story on it. Throughout the year, I sat in the back of the room and had a fake bible cover over my Flash 5 Bible and was…

... and this is the reason we can’t have nice things. Source: In 8th grade our class had to do a book report ‘project’. I selected an ebook on intro to processing (it’s an environment build on Java that lets you create graphics applications easily). I wrote an application that drove a (self built) 6-wheel drive robot wirelessly around our school for the project. Needless to say, there’s was little literary analysis d…

Overachievers should not be able to raise the bar. If they can, then the system is broken. Grades should be relative to the course content, not the abilities of the students.

When I started university, it was clear that I had much more experience programming than the other students, but I had to do certain introductory classes anyway because there was no way to receive credit for half a decade of self learning. On one assignment my lecturer went looking for things to mark me down on that were outside the scope of the assignment because "it would look suspicious if you got a perfect grade".

Some people are just capable of more than is expected of that class for whatever reason, not because they intend to demoralise everyone else and break the system.

Re: Show HN: The operating system I built as my high school project (2016)

#62
post #61
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and this is the reason we can’t have nice things. Source: In 8th grade our class had to do a book report ‘project’. I selected an ebook on intro to processing (it’s an environment build on Java that lets you create graphics applications easily). I wrote an application that drove a (self built) 6-wheel drive robot wirelessly around our school for the project. Needless to say, there’s was little literary analysis d…

Overachievers should not be able to raise the bar. If they can, then the system is broken. Grades should be relative to the course content, not the abilities of the students. When I started university, it was clear that I had much more experience programming than the other students, but I had to do certain introductory classes anyway because there was no way to receive credit for half a decade of self learning. On on…

Similar story when I was at college (UK meaning) (late 90s).

Final project was an inventory system for a company.

Mine was a RDBMS backed system that implemented proper stock control with parent/child SKU handling etc (I went to the library and checked out books on inventory control) and was fully documented (180 pages of documentation) and a full user manual with a FAQ.

I thought that was what professional programmers did...man was I in for a shock when I hit industry.

Re: Show HN: The operating system I built as my high school project (2016)

#64
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, writing "scary" software like a compiler, an OS, a kernel driver, etc is more about bravery/daring than raw skill or intellect. There are quite a few people that know C and C++ in high school, so it seems reasonable that at least some of them would have someone (IRL or online) nudge them in the direction of an OS and tell them "it's not as hard as you think, if you dare to try." I don't say this to…

Much of the willingness to attempt to write “scary” software when you are young is being ignorant of the complexity involved. That is probably why younger people are so disruptive in tech as well. Older you get the more reasons why not to do something appears.

I learned programming faster when I had no clue how awful I was doing it. I just kept going and bumping into things a lot.

Now learning a new language is hard because I'm trapped in thus mindset of, "surely this isn't the most time efficient way to learn this..."

Only recently have I made some progress by not looking back and coding myself into a wall even if I think I can see the wall coming.

Re: Show HN: The operating system I built as my high school project (2016)

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a chance it’s also on a Zip disk somewhere in my basement!

Oh wow, Zip disks! I entirely forgot those existed. Which is now bringing back memories of just how many different disk drives those late 90s computers would have. The desktops in my middle school would have floppy, zip, sometimes another floppy, and an optical/cd drive. Towers are now almost flat in front, with even optical CD/DVD drives disappearing in many corners, but back in the day there were disk bays everywhe…

I'll add MO discs. They were supposedly more durable, longer-lasting, and (at one point) GB than CD's and DVD's. I discovered them playing Resident Evil.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_drive

I also had a drive for 100MB, Zip disks. Only ever owned one since I couldn't justify the expense. Hardly anyone else had them. What's point of a tech for moving data if you can't use it to share the data with friends and local businesses? ;)

Re: Show HN: The operating system I built as my high school project (2016)

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, Zip disks! I entirely forgot those existed. Which is now bringing back memories of just how many different disk drives those late 90s computers would have. The desktops in my middle school would have floppy, zip, sometimes another floppy, and an optical/cd drive. Towers are now almost flat in front, with even optical CD/DVD drives disappearing in many corners, but back in the day there were disk bays everywhe…

I'll add MO discs. They were supposedly more durable, longer-lasting, and (at one point) GB than CD's and DVD's. I discovered them playing Resident Evil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_drive I also had a drive for 100MB, Zip disks. Only ever owned one since I couldn't justify the expense. Hardly anyone else had them. What's point of a tech for moving data if you can't use it to share the data with frie…

Anyone for Jaz drives? Oh man, I remember my mom having 100MB Zip drives and 1GB Jaz drives for a while in the 90s. Always wanted an excuse to play around with them but didn't have much useful data to put on them at that point.

Re: Show HN: The operating system I built as my high school project (2016)

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a chance it’s also on a Zip disk somewhere in my basement!

Oh wow, Zip disks! I entirely forgot those existed. Which is now bringing back memories of just how many different disk drives those late 90s computers would have. The desktops in my middle school would have floppy, zip, sometimes another floppy, and an optical/cd drive. Towers are now almost flat in front, with even optical CD/DVD drives disappearing in many corners, but back in the day there were disk bays everywhe…

And now even hard drives and their associated bays are disappearing (good riddance) as flash storage becomes increasingly prevalent in the form of SSD M.2 slots. Most functionality that was on expansion cards is now either redundant (sound cards, disk controllers) or integrated somehow onto the motherboard/chipset/processor (networking, integrated graphics, video in/out capabilities built into USB and HDMI ports)...

Re: Show HN: The operating system I built as my high school project (2016)

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, Zip disks! I entirely forgot those existed. Which is now bringing back memories of just how many different disk drives those late 90s computers would have. The desktops in my middle school would have floppy, zip, sometimes another floppy, and an optical/cd drive. Towers are now almost flat in front, with even optical CD/DVD drives disappearing in many corners, but back in the day there were disk bays everywhe…

I'll add MO discs. They were supposedly more durable, longer-lasting, and (at one point) GB than CD's and DVD's. I discovered them playing Resident Evil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_drive I also had a drive for 100MB, Zip disks. Only ever owned one since I couldn't justify the expense. Hardly anyone else had them. What's point of a tech for moving data if you can't use it to share the data with frie…

While on the (off-) topic of magneto-optical drives, do you remember how every cyberpunk film of the 1990s seemed to feature (MO) MiniDiscs as ‘future’ storage? I remember them appearing in some form or another in Strange Days, Johnny Mnemonic, and The Matrix (amongst others). Lawnmower Man featured CD drives in external caddies, a type of drive system that virtually disappeared with the advent of ‘2x” CD-ROM drives starting sometime in 1992 or 1993.

My first USB ‘thumbrive’ was a 16MB IBM-branded unit I received as an amazing gift in December 2001, when the world was still in shock over the 9/11 attacks.

God, the memories...

Re: Show HN: The operating system I built as my high school project (2016)

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll add MO discs. They were supposedly more durable, longer-lasting, and (at one point) GB than CD's and DVD's. I discovered them playing Resident Evil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_drive I also had a drive for 100MB, Zip disks. Only ever owned one since I couldn't justify the expense. Hardly anyone else had them. What's point of a tech for moving data if you can't use it to share the data with frie…

Anyone for Jaz drives? Oh man, I remember my mom having 100MB Zip drives and 1GB Jaz drives for a while in the 90s. Always wanted an excuse to play around with them but didn't have much useful data to put on them at that point.

I had an internal 2GB Jaz SCSI unit in my April of 1999 dual-PIII-450 “God Box” I was given for my 18th birthday.
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