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liendolucas wrote: post #75

touisteur wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those looking for it https://www.jagregory.com/abrash-black-book If some/most of the actual tricks are not up to date (ahem) the whole book is filled with techniques, stories, concepts... It's more than ever a Zen of optimization opus. Can someone on HN close to him tell Michael Abrash, should he write again, whatever he wants, even gardening or vulkanstuff wrangling, he has guaranteed readers.

Slightly off-topic... There's was a post in HN about how to set up a nice retro DOS development environment in linux. Despite searching for it I can't find it... If a gentle soul remembers it, much appreciated. I think a good DOS environment is a must in order to follow the book.

Yes a DOS environment is necessary if you want to follow through code examples, and tackle some of the optimization challenges (but mostly only try to beat the book if you have an actual 8086/286/386/486/Pentium I processor - or a cycle-precise emulator).

I read the whole book(s) thrice cover to cover without touching a computer (these were the days) in my teens and it was easy to follow, and full of nuggets for a young aspiring programmer. I had third-hand 8086, 386 and pentium 75 boxes at the time, but didn't open Turbo C before I'd finished the book, and it was to try and implement a bsp tree, then a whole 3d stereo (anaglyphs) software renderer (inspired by the book).