Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

C64 OS: make a Commodore 64 feel fast and useful

c64os.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 112 posts

Re: C64 OS: make a Commodore 64 feel fast and useful

#91

Post by ddingus »

jogu wrote: post #62
the_af wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Useful" in what sense? This is retrocomputing, a hobby. Nothing about it is "useful", it's about playing with old computers and emulators for its own sake.

The first thing on the page is: > C64 OS has one goal. Make a Commodore 64 feel fast and useful in today’s modern world. So I guess whatever "useful in today's modern world" means. What does this new OS allow me to accomplish on a C64?

Looks to me like a couple things:

File / Disk management. The file manager program shown looks spiffy, and is definitively a nod toward today.

Write utilities and apps that have a modern workflow.

While not much, the included tool kit has the features needed to make applications and utilities people might recognize today.

The author has put quite a bit into it. Nice work.

Re: C64 OS: make a Commodore 64 feel fast and useful

#92

Post by Tozen »

analognoise wrote: post #88
badsectoracula wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No but that isn't because of Lazarus itself but because "Netflix/FAANG" doesn't use it as what it does isn't really in their business interests. Lazarus is mainly about making desktop applications. It can do web, etc but it isn't really a focus and you lose most of the visual functionality anyway (yeah ok, you can set up URL routing via the object inspector and connect DB components together, but 99% of the work is d…

There's a JS transpiler in the works for FreePascal, iirc.

Pas2JS already exists in the Free Pascal world. You can make applications with it. https://wiki.freepascal.org/pas2js

Also there are other Pascal to JavaScript transpilers, which use other dialects of Object Pascal, such as DWScript and Smart Pascal.

Re: C64 OS: make a Commodore 64 feel fast and useful

#93

Post by marttt »

frostwarrior wrote: post #87
anyfoo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This needs a lot of qualifiers. I can see that for web development maybe (I don't know, haven't done that for almost 10 years, but I can imagine given the constraints), but for system level programming for example I don't want to go back to the 90s. Not that Visual Basic or Delphi worked for that anyway.

Also, as the internet (and technology) grew in influence and popularity, the amound of usecases for them grew exponentially. In the "golden era" computers were more or less advanced calculators. Now we (as a population) expect to give entertainment and give advice about our lifestyle, like we do with smartwatches or fitness devices. That's a lot more complicated than writing text or inputting numbers into a grid

> Now we (as a population) expect to give entertainment and give advice about our lifestyle, like we do with smartwatches or fitness devices.

I always think about Lindy effect [1] in this context: the life expectancy of a technology, idea or (in our case) a societal habit is proportional to its current age. It follows, then, that the idea of a multi-purpose computing device may also wear off in certain areas of life, or for certain types of people. Not always, not everywhere is there a need for complex or complicated devices or systems. There will always be people who seek or prefer a simpler, quieter life that involves as little technology as possible.

What's really interesting is that many of these people seem to have a remarkably deep understanding of technology, and great skills [2]. Possibly because of this knowledge, they're really clear (or, pedantic :) about what they don't need.

In the end, though, I've come to think that this may be more of a simple psychological preference (for less stimulation) than a rationalized choice. Who knows.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

2: Some of the people I really look up to: http://collapseos.org/, http://joeyh.name/, https://sassenrath.com/

Re: C64 OS: make a Commodore 64 feel fast and useful

#94

Post by melony »

kragen wrote: post #84
kazinator wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's closer to something like the other 99.9999999%. What we've done with it is things like: when you type text into what looks like a simple edit field, each keystroke launches a cascade of javascript. Layers and layers of API's cause latency. To get this to happen, you have to talk to this broker, which calls this proxy, which delegates to this manager, which queries this store, ... You will probably almost never s…

"the other 99.9999999%" would imply that computers now are a billion times faster than a C64. For some tasks, that's true; a GeForce RTX 3090 is claimed to be 36 teraflops, which is a billion times 36000 flops, and the C64 is more like 10000 flops if we figure we need 100 clock cycles per floating-point operation. But, for other tasks, it's not a billion times faster; single-threaded 16-bit integer code might get 0.1…

Look ma, no pipelines.

Re: C64 OS: make a Commodore 64 feel fast and useful

#96

Post by pjmlp »

kragen wrote: post #84
kazinator wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's closer to something like the other 99.9999999%. What we've done with it is things like: when you type text into what looks like a simple edit field, each keystroke launches a cascade of javascript. Layers and layers of API's cause latency. To get this to happen, you have to talk to this broker, which calls this proxy, which delegates to this manager, which queries this store, ... You will probably almost never s…

"the other 99.9999999%" would imply that computers now are a billion times faster than a C64. For some tasks, that's true; a GeForce RTX 3090 is claimed to be 36 teraflops, which is a billion times 36000 flops, and the C64 is more like 10000 flops if we figure we need 100 clock cycles per floating-point operation. But, for other tasks, it's not a billion times faster; single-threaded 16-bit integer code might get 0.1…

My phone is better than a SGI Indigo, a Lisp Machine or Connection Machine, yet it gets used as a container for web apps disguised as native.

Re: C64 OS: make a Commodore 64 feel fast and useful

#97

Post by pjmlp »

vidarh wrote: post #55
baq wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

google developed golang instead of improving pascal, so you probably can't. the two languages have surprisingly similar goals.

> the two languages have surprisingly similar goals. Not so surprising, given the backgrounds of the key designers of Go, I feel. Griesemer even got his PhD under Mössenböck and Wirth.

Griesemer PhD's is related to Oberon.

"A Programming Language for Vector Computers"

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.42....

Re: C64 OS: make a Commodore 64 feel fast and useful

#98

Post by vinkelhake »

throwaway47292 wrote: post #33
cageface wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Luddite sentiment common among programmers today really surprises me. The software we’re building today is vastly more powerful and capable than anything from the C64 era.

As I am writing this comment my 2017 macbook is spinning fans, as if it is doing protein folding.. and it has like 3 tabs open on chrome. And for what? to edit a text box? There are new capabilities around encryption and encoding, things like h265 and etc, which of course help with medical diagnostics and such. I would take c64 software any time, look at this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROr8JhilPhI its from 1983.…

> And for what?

Honest question here: have you actually tried to find the answer to that question?

As I'm writing this comment, my 2019 Pixelbook Go is quiet. It's a fanless design, so it being quiet is normal, but it is also not running hot. I've got around 30 tabs open, a few terminals, Emacs, and some other stuff running.

So back to my question - have you looked into what is actually going on in your machine? Dust in the fans?

Re: C64 OS: make a Commodore 64 feel fast and useful

#99

Post by [deleted] »

kragen wrote: post #84
kazinator wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's closer to something like the other 99.9999999%. What we've done with it is things like: when you type text into what looks like a simple edit field, each keystroke launches a cascade of javascript. Layers and layers of API's cause latency. To get this to happen, you have to talk to this broker, which calls this proxy, which delegates to this manager, which queries this store, ... You will probably almost never s…

"the other 99.9999999%" would imply that computers now are a billion times faster than a C64. For some tasks, that's true; a GeForce RTX 3090 is claimed to be 36 teraflops, which is a billion times 36000 flops, and the C64 is more like 10000 flops if we figure we need 100 clock cycles per floating-point operation. But, for other tasks, it's not a billion times faster; single-threaded 16-bit integer code might get 0.1…

[deleted]

Re: C64 OS: make a Commodore 64 feel fast and useful

#100

Post by vidarh »

pjmlp wrote: post #97
vidarh wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the two languages have surprisingly similar goals. Not so surprising, given the backgrounds of the key designers of Go, I feel. Griesemer even got his PhD under Mössenböck and Wirth.

Griesemer PhD's is related to Oberon. "A Programming Language for Vector Computers" https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.42....

I've read it. I "binged" on pretty much everything published by Wirth and Mössenböck's groups at one point. His work on Oberon really underlines the point that it's unsurprising that Go has similarities in terms of design goals.
Post reply on HN