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

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

#21

Post by vivin » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 4:34 AM UTC

Jugurtha wrote: post #10

umeshunni wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hits close to home. I grew up in Saudi in the 90s and had a very similar experience - stared out on an Atari 65XE, moved on to a 486 with QBasic, then QuickBasic, Turbo Pascal and later Visual Basic and VC++ (with a detour to Borland C++). The jump from QBasic to Quick Basic and understanding .EXEs, compilation etc was the turning point for me in understanding programming, debugging and operating systems. Your n…

>The jump from QBasic to Quick Basic and understanding .EXEs, compilation etc was the turning point for me in understanding programming, debugging and operating systems. That's hilarious. I remember I was pissed off: why certain files do stuff and are games and all. How do they do that! So I created a new .TXT file and changed its extension to .COM and tried to execute it. Then to .EXE. It didn't work. I don't know w…

Oh, wow! I did the exact same thing! I remember thinking why some files would just "run" from the command-line and why others wouldn't! I remember renaming a .TXT file to .COM or .EXE and also wondering why it wouldn't run!

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

#22

Post by Retra » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 4:42 AM UTC

rafaelm wrote: post #18

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…

I read once that computers are like magic genies: they will grant your every wish, so long as you are able to carefully articulate what you want in such detail and with so little ambiguity that they cannot possibly misinterpret what you wish for.

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

#23

Post by shrikant » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 6:29 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.

Another ISM-er checking in. So many of us here on HN, woot!

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

#24

Post by ralfd » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 8:37 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 remember learning to type `help`

I assume you grew up in an english speaking country.

The submitted article is about Oman in Arabia. And for me too as a German 7-8 year old kid the command line help page was inscrutable black magic incantations in latin.

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

#25

Post by yashinm92 » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 10:50 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.

Looks like it's an Oman meetup! Student of ISD here.

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

#26

Post by hani13 » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 1:00 PM UTC

I can one up you. I learned how to program in Oman in the 80's.

Most of what I learned was on a C64, initially basic but very quickly switched to assembly.

Coding involved waiting for 1-2 month old magazines arriving and painstakingly typing in all the code to eventually end up with a snake game or similar.

In terms of actual games, there were two avenues:

- Mail order from the UK (takes roughly 2-3 months for it to be shipped and arrive). I still very fondly remember the rush of adrenalin when my dad would say 'there's mail for you'.

- There was a Chinese antiques shop in Ruwi that had a back room with some Chinese enthusiast computing guy who sold games. He eventually got me hooked onto PCs (showed me a mindblowing 286 with CGA graphics which I graduated to after my C64, my parents refused to buy me an Amiga as they thought I'd just use it for gaming).

I ended up becoming quite good at cracking software protection (pretty easy when all you had to do is look through 64kb of ram, you could literally read the whole thing in a few hours), and setting up a dodgy business selling games to everyone at school.

I always felt very out of place though as few people shared the passion I had for this stuff. Moving to the UK after high school for A levels/university and discovering like minded people on BBSs and then the internet in the early 90's was pretty life changing. Suddenly I was not alone, it turns out there's a huge swathe of people that have the exact same passions!

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

#27

Post by vivin » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 1:36 PM UTC

hani13 wrote: post #26

I can one up you. I learned how to program in Oman in the 80's. Most of what I learned was on a C64, initially basic but very quickly switched to assembly. Coding involved waiting for 1-2 month old magazines arriving and painstakingly typing in all the code to eventually end up with a snake game or similar. In terms of actual games, there were two avenues: - Mail order from the UK (takes roughly 2-3 months for it to…

It's crazy how much motivation and passion you can get when information is so scarce, and you just want to play games :D I don't regret what I had to go through either.