Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s • Hacker News Board

Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s

#11

Post by nikatwork » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 1:38 AM UTC

dmix wrote: post #3

> But even that was a non-trivial endeavor in those days. You couldn’t just click or touch an icon on the screen to launch the game; you had to use command-line. I hear this a lot in retrospectives but was this really that challenging? I remember using DOS when I was in grade 3 (7-8 yrs old) and being able to easily navigate around the primitive computer that was at my moms house most of the week, while using windows…

Depends on your hardware. Some games required extensive noodling with CONFIG.SYS and memory flags to run. This was essentially pre-internet so it sucked unless you had some local help.

Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s

#12

Post by Spooky23 » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 2:22 AM UTC

dmix wrote: post #3

> But even that was a non-trivial endeavor in those days. You couldn’t just click or touch an icon on the screen to launch the game; you had to use command-line. I hear this a lot in retrospectives but was this really that challenging? I remember using DOS when I was in grade 3 (7-8 yrs old) and being able to easily navigate around the primitive computer that was at my moms house most of the week, while using windows…

Same here. I had to nurse an old PC XT along, and ended up developing a system of boot scripts to optimize memory and other configuration for different games.

Probably pretty trivial in reality, but I was very proud of it at the time. :)

Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s

#13

Post by vivin » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 3:29 AM UTC

dmix wrote: post #3

> But even that was a non-trivial endeavor in those days. You couldn’t just click or touch an icon on the screen to launch the game; you had to use command-line. I hear this a lot in retrospectives but was this really that challenging? I remember using DOS when I was in grade 3 (7-8 yrs old) and being able to easily navigate around the primitive computer that was at my moms house most of the week, while using windows…

It was more or a relative assessment of difficulty than absolute; I was comparing it to what it takes to play a game these days. Back then you had to do more legwork. It wasn't objectively that difficult though.

Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s

#14

Post by vivin » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 3:29 AM UTC

dmix wrote: post #3

> But even that was a non-trivial endeavor in those days. You couldn’t just click or touch an icon on the screen to launch the game; you had to use command-line. I hear this a lot in retrospectives but was this really that challenging? I remember using DOS when I was in grade 3 (7-8 yrs old) and being able to easily navigate around the primitive computer that was at my moms house most of the week, while using windows…

It was more or a relative assessment of difficulty than absolute; I was comparing it to what it takes to play a game these days. Back then you had to do more legwork. It wasn't objectively that difficult though.

Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s

#15

Post by vivin » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 3:31 AM UTC

2pointsomone wrote: post #2

Hey Vivin! Great to see this. Also grew up in Oman (went to ISM). Good old days! Times when the only games you could get were from some shady stores in Ruwi or in CCC or Al-Harthy Complex. So so nice to see all the hacks you were up to be able to play cool games.

Hello! Haha, yes I remember the computer store in Al-Harthy complex where you could get games; all pirated of course. I remember I used to go there with friends in high school! Definitely good times...

Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s

#16

Post by reachtarunhere » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 3:54 AM UTC

Sometimes the lack of resources makes life simple and fun. I miss the feeling of doing things aimlessly just for the sake of doing them. Not for some reward or even the perceived value of what the task is. Nostalgia is the word that best describes this post :)

Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s

#17

Post by khedoros » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 4:06 AM UTC

dmix wrote: post #3

> But even that was a non-trivial endeavor in those days. You couldn’t just click or touch an icon on the screen to launch the game; you had to use command-line. I hear this a lot in retrospectives but was this really that challenging? I remember using DOS when I was in grade 3 (7-8 yrs old) and being able to easily navigate around the primitive computer that was at my moms house most of the week, while using windows…

> I hear this a lot in retrospectives but was this really that challenging?

I guess what I remember around that age was using various games' bootdisk utilities to generate disks, then looking at the contents, blindly fooling around with different combinations of settings to get my games working by trial and error. Navigation was pretty easy, but getting memory-constrained things working without some key concepts (x86 real mode memory, stack sizes, file handles, etc) was a challenge.

I think the "help" command was added in MS-DOS 5.0, and I know that I at least started using DOS before then.

Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s

#18

Post by rafaelm » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 4:13 AM UTC

Hah I think we must have had the same Logo teacher. I vividly remember him telling us that the computer is stupid and that it would only do what we told it to. I must have been around 8 years old, late 80's I think.

My interest in computers only resurfaced around 5-6 years later, complete with Geocities and Xoom experiments! How I wish I could find those first sites I made using Frontpage and copying HTML from other sites.

That was a nice read!

Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s

#19

Post by Ar-Curunir » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 4:23 AM UTC

2pointsomone wrote: post #2

Hey Vivin! Great to see this. Also grew up in Oman (went to ISM). Good old days! Times when the only games you could get were from some shady stores in Ruwi or in CCC or Al-Harthy Complex. So so nice to see all the hacks you were up to be able to play cool games.

ISM was the bomb. I still remember being taught what an ALU did or what the CPU was. We had just started doing some basic LOGO programming (around 4th grade-ish) when I left.

Re: Learning how to program in Oman in the 90’s

#20

Post by vivin » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 4:30 AM UTC

2pointsomone wrote: post #2

Hey Vivin! Great to see this. Also grew up in Oman (went to ISM). Good old days! Times when the only games you could get were from some shady stores in Ruwi or in CCC or Al-Harthy Complex. So so nice to see all the hacks you were up to be able to play cool games.

Just saw your line about ISM - I was in ISM until 8th and I still remember they had those classes in the computer lab by the canteen :) I moved to ISG after 8th because my dad got a job in Ghala.