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Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

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Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#201
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need a better system. We tried communism and that was shit, so this is the least bad system we have.

We didn't try communism as far as I know. We hunted it down and murdered it in its cradle if I'm reading the CIA declassified archives correctly.

Why is every HN thread glazing communism now?

Are people that broken nowadays?

boo hoo I dont have the new iphone the moment it release.

Bish I was on PS1 until 2004.

Ask East Germans, Poland, Lithuania, Lativa, Estonia etc if communism or capitalism is better. I'll wait. :)

Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#202
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a very long while now, we had programmers who never understood any low level concepts at all . They have started with js or python, and never looked 'down'. There are no limits to monstrosities they will consider normal. Linus Torvalds, a few months ago, said something to this effect when discussing AI coding tools. That his (also, mine) generation was lucky to have started with low level stuff and managed to ret…

>and managed to retain the understanding of the whole stack No one understands the whole stack. There is too much specialized information.

I mean, depends on what one means by 'understands'. Here is my definition of having understanding of a full stack:

I am nearly 50, started with computers when I was 7. I did sort of everything -from wiring individual transistors together into custom logic circuits, assembly on various platforms, drivers and other kernel level stuff on dos and then windows, low level networking, higher level monolithic systems design, infrastructure management, various storage systems, various compute implementations, obnoxious types of software defined networks, security stacks - from hardware based attestation through identity/role management in multi-cloud environments, higher level distributed systems and finally i am a cto for a large-ish company and do a lot of enterprise architecture.

I also dabble in hobby programming on various things, building custom firmwares for chinese electronics, building frontends and backends for side projects, I have built a js framework or two just to understand state and rendering stuff, and of course now i am dabbling with local LLMs, because thats the new thing that can be learned.

I am sure there are lots of people with similar experiences in my age bracket (I am 48) - who had a lot of exposure to all levels in the stack. Sure, I was never particularly good with anything I mentioned, but thanks to a mix of diverse work experiences and absolute, uncompromising love of learning new computer things, I think I do have a fairly good understanding of what happens in computer systems, big and small. Now, could I design, say, a modern ELB properly, no, but I do understand the networking stuff enough to at least outline the design and key elements of the system without asking a friendly LLM. No such luck for kids these days, I am afraid - they will be actively shielded from having to learn stuff the hard way.

Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#203
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and managed to retain the understanding of the whole stack No one understands the whole stack. There is too much specialized information.

Even assembly is a high-level language relative to what’s actually going on inside a modern CPU.

Ya sure, but diminishing returns there. Programmers these days lack the most basic abstractions - and don't understand how interrupts work and what is the main difference between parallelism and concurrency, or how to calculate the memory or computational cost of a given algorithm, because - chances are - they never implemented any algorithm to begin with. I'd say this is a bigger problem than not being able to brag about having implemented complex silicon :-)

Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#204
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's interesting is that Microsoft BASIC itself was derived from BASIC-PLUS which itself was derived from Dartmouth BASIC (which evolved into a structured programming language called SBASIC (Structured BASIC). But the popularity of Microsoft BASIC, actually halted the standardisation of SBASIC as an ANSI standard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_BASIC The Altair BASIC interpreter was developed by Microsoft…

Nit: the pdp-10 is generally considered a mainframe not a minicomputer.

They had a working PDP-10 at the Living Computers Museum (since shut down by Paul Allen's estate). Definitely a mainframe. That thing takes up an entire room.

Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#205

I cannot describe to you how jealous I am of the fact that back then writing a few thousand lines of assembly was what it took to launch a successful software company.

No, it wasn't the case then, it's not the case now :

"Beyond the Seattle area, Gates [Bill's mother] was appointed to the board of directors of the national United Way in 1980, becoming the first woman to lead it in 1983. Her tenure on the national board's executive committee is believed to have helped Microsoft, based in Seattle, at a crucial time. In 1980, she discussed her son's company with John Opel, a fellow committee member, and the chairman of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). Opel, by some accounts, mentioned Mrs. Gates to other IBM executives. A few weeks later, IBM took a chance by hiring Microsoft, then a small software firm, to develop an operating system for its first personal computer." from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates

It's as if your mother now was at the board of NVIDIA (because IBM then was quite the powerhouse). Sure, you still need to write "a few thousands lines of assembly" or equivalent... or find someone else who would, but you still need the connection to sell "it".

So... is your mom at such a famous board? Actually ANY board? If not you might have to write a LOT more and still a successful software company, sorry.

Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Russian empire tried communism. It was better than what they had before or since. The Chinese tried communism. It worked far better for them than what they had before.

> The Russian empire tried communism. It was better than what they had before or since. No, it was not better. Quite objectively.

By what metrics? Life expectancy rose during communism and fell afterwords. Are you seriously going to try and argue it was better during the Czarist times?

Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#207
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Russian empire tried communism. It was better than what they had before or since. The Chinese tried communism. It worked far better for them than what they had before.

In the opinion of the champaign socialists in the West. In the opinion of people who lived under that regime... Not so much.

You think life and the Czars or under Czar Putin is better?

Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Russian empire tried communism. It was better than what they had before or since. The Chinese tried communism. It worked far better for them than what they had before.

The Iron Curtain was a real thing, as was the Berlin Wall. Successful social and economic systems do not need to execute their own citizens for attempting to escape.

How did Russia fair under the Czars? How are they fairing now?

Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Russian empire tried communism. It was better than what they had before or since. No, it was not better. Quite objectively.

By what metrics? Life expectancy rose during communism and fell afterwords. Are you seriously going to try and argue it was better during the Czarist times?

Russia lost nearly 2 decades of development post-WWI. And had a widespread hunger in 1930-s with 4-8 million people dead (we _still_ don't know the accurate number).

Even just looking at the industrial growth rates, the socialistic economy of the USSR was inferior to many capitalistic economies starting from the same base. E.g. South Korea or Japan.

Your data about life expectancy is also plainly wrong: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.MA.IN?locat...

Re: Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By what metrics? Life expectancy rose during communism and fell afterwords. Are you seriously going to try and argue it was better during the Czarist times?

Russia lost nearly 2 decades of development post-WWI. And had a widespread hunger in 1930-s with 4-8 million people dead (we _still_ don't know the accurate number). Even just looking at the industrial growth rates, the socialistic economy of the USSR was inferior to many capitalistic economies starting from the same base. E.g. South Korea or Japan. Your data about life expectancy is also plainly wrong: https://data.…

You are willfully missing the point. You can’t compare Russia to South Korea to claim communism bad. Russia has and will screw up every system it tries. You need to compare communist Russia to capitalist Russia. There the comparison looks much less favorable.

Also your graph proves my point. The giant drop in life expectancy is when it transitioned from communism to capitalism.

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