On 2025-10-23 22:01, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 23 Oct 2025 15:06:27 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I would like to buy an small electrically assisted pedal bicycle. One
that I can pack inside my car. It is not laziness, but that I don't
have that force in me any longer.
That way I could visit places that do not allow cars, perhaps.
One thing to remember is they are quite a bit heavier than road bikes.
bicycles, I hope you mean, not motorbikes.
I heard that most, probably all, electrically assisted bicycles do not
have regenerative braking.
Burcu Yesilyurt, who lives in Kew, said she thought she was acting
responsibly when she poured a small amount from her reusable cup
down the drain - rather than risk spilling it on the bus she was
about to catch to work.
On Fri, 24 Oct 2025 10:09:14 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-10-23 22:01, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 23 Oct 2025 15:06:27 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I would like to buy an small electrically assisted pedal bicycle. One
that I can pack inside my car. It is not laziness, but that I don't
have that force in me any longer.
That way I could visit places that do not allow cars, perhaps.
One thing to remember is they are quite a bit heavier than road bikes.
bicycles, I hope you mean, not motorbikes.
Yeah, given this thread I should have been explicit. Many of the ones I've seen around town have fat tires. 26 x 4" I think. For reference the front tire on my DR650 is 21 x 3.25. There is quite a range depending on the batteries but the fat tire types go around 35 kg. That could be hard to wrestle into a car.
https://www.montaguebikes.com/product/paratrooper/
Not an e-bike but it's around 15 kg. It fits into the hatchback but it's a big awkward since the CG is out in front of you when you're lifting it. I didn't want to use a bike carrier so went with the folder. Lifting 35 kg
on a rear carrier would be possible but I wouldn't want to try a clean
and jerk with something as awkward as a bike to get it onto a rooftop carrier.
I heard that most, probably all, electrically assisted bicycles do not
have regenerative braking.
https://www.engadget.com/transportation/the-first-e-bike-from-rivian- spinoff-also-has-a-virtual-drivetrain-173000250.html
That's the full write up. It will have regenerative braking.
On 2025-10-23 22:23, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 23 Oct 2025 14:57:44 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
It is square bales here, I see them sometimes in the fields, sometimes
piled up high in a barn. I just don't remember seeing the machine that
piles them up.
Unfortunately several other people and myself were that machines that
piled them... A Harobed could put a row in place but we didn't have
one.
Not fun.
I visited my mother's village for a summer. The place lived from
agriculture, but not cows in sight. Small survival plots. The straw was
kept inside barns, it rained.
See this mute video, how they separated the grain from the straw. There
is a pile of straw in the back.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkicw9W4poQ>
Ok, few cows either around here. No much rain.
On 2025-10-22 23:05, rbowman wrote:
On Wed, 22 Oct 2025 14:07:01 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I never rode a bike, they scare me. Also they fascinate me, as
machines.
Speaking of which, it's up to 54 F. Time to go for a ride while the
weather holds. Mornings are frost so might as well waste time on usenet
:)
25°C yesterday afternoon-evening. Too hot for the season. Forecast is 27
for today.
On 24/10/2025 09:42, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-10-22 23:05, rbowman wrote:Lucky you. Stiff north wind and about 5-10°C here.
On Wed, 22 Oct 2025 14:07:01 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I never rode a bike, they scare me. Also they fascinate me, as
machines.
Speaking of which, it's up to 54 F. Time to go for a ride while the
weather holds. Mornings are frost so might as well waste time on
usenet :)
25°C yesterday afternoon-evening. Too hot for the season. Forecast is
27 for today.
On Fri, 24 Oct 2025 10:38:20 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Ok, few cows either around here. No much rain.
As far as rainfall this is a semiarid climate with 12 to 15" of precipitation annually. However in good years there is a lot of mountain
snow pack that feeds the rivers. Almost farm land is irrigated.
That's the story in most of the western US. If you can't irrigate you
can't grow anything. California, in particular, would be mostly desert without their extensive water projects. That includes LA. There's some dryland farming but it's tricky and a good yield is far from guaranteed.
On Fri, 24 Oct 2025 10:35:31 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-10-23 22:23, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 23 Oct 2025 14:57:44 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
It is square bales here, I see them sometimes in the fields, sometimes >>>> piled up high in a barn. I just don't remember seeing the machine that >>>> piles them up.
Unfortunately several other people and myself were that machines that
piled them... A Harobed could put a row in place but we didn't have
one.
Not fun.
I visited my mother's village for a summer. The place lived from
agriculture, but not cows in sight. Small survival plots. The straw was
kept inside barns, it rained.
See this mute video, how they separated the grain from the straw. There
is a pile of straw in the back.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkicw9W4poQ>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combine_harvester
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqg7QfnDCDs
The state grows a lot of wheat but baling straw is a sideline. A lot of
wheat growers just plow it under. Hay is a major crop though. This part of the state isn't suitable for wheat but there is a lot of hay. Generally
they get two cuttings a year.
https://www.americasheartland.org/state/montana/
Alfalfa hay fetches about $30 a ton over grass hay. Like any other
commodity the price fluctuates quite a bit. I think alfalfa is $125 / ton currently. It's not the most lucrative crop but in farming you grow what
you can grow.
On Fri, 24 Oct 2025 10:38:20 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Ok, few cows either around here. No much rain.
As far as rainfall this is a semiarid climate with 12 to 15" of precipitation annually. However in good years there is a lot of mountain
snow pack that feeds the rivers. Almost farm land is irrigated.
That's the story in most of the western US. If you can't irrigate you
can't grow anything. California, in particular, would be mostly desert without their extensive water projects. That includes LA. There's some dryland farming but it's tricky and a good yield is far from guaranteed.
Interesting. But too expensive. If those are the normal prices, I will
have to reconsider.
We (Cartagena) are in the Mediterranean coast, south east of Spain. No rivers. During Franco dictatorship a canal was built to bring water from
a far river (far according to our size). The "Trasvase Tajo-Segura".
Of course. But at places like that village that was impossible, the
plots were too small. It comes from dividing the inheritance between
your sons, and they marrying and geting another plot(s) from wife,
generation after generation, for centuries. Plus, it is a valley and
there are mountains, no much flat land.
It is, was, survival agriculture, they cultivated what they could
directly eat. No selling. They did not have money. They paid the doctor
with eggs!
On Thu, 23 Oct 2025 04:01:47 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On the other hand, the last few times we've driven down I-5 through
Oregon, we've seen stacks of huge rectangular bales. They're roughly
the same proportions as the traditional bales, but maybe three times as
large on each dimension.
I haven't seen the large ones. I wonder if they're designed for shipping?
I once loaded baled hay in Ellensburg WA and took it to the docks in Long Beach CA. There it was loaded into containers bound for Japan. I think feeding a cow in Japan must be pricey. Round bales wouldn't pack as
nicely.
I used to have enough cash and credit to go to Walmart and searchon
refurbished computers which is why the .sig file is relevant.
On Thu, 23 Oct 2025 20:59:59 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
I used to have enough cash and credit to go to Walmart and searchon
refurbished computers which is why the .sig file is relevant.
I've got a refurbed Lenovo Thinkpad T480 coming. We'll see how that works out. It has replaceable part and was well thought of in its day. It was cheaper than a mini and is a real laptop. Lubuntu runs on my very old
netbook but it's very slow.
It's not in the Dell Precision 7730 league but for $215 it's something to play with Arch on.
On Fri, 24 Oct 2025 10:42:54 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-10-22 23:05, rbowman wrote:
On Wed, 22 Oct 2025 14:07:01 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I never rode a bike, they scare me. Also they fascinate me, as
machines.
Speaking of which, it's up to 54 F. Time to go for a ride while the
weather holds. Mornings are frost so might as well waste time on usenet
:)
25°C yesterday afternoon-evening. Too hot for the season. Forecast is 27
for today.
It's suppose to get up to 19 C today but right now it's a little over 7.
Next week looks like highs in the 10 - 12 range. Winter is coming.
On Fri, 24 Oct 2025 21:22:36 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Interesting. But too expensive. If those are the normal prices, I will
have to reconsider.
No, that's high end. I think you can get something decent in the 1000-1500 USD range but it would require research. Bicycles have been that way for years. Shimano has quite a few different grades of components, all of
which look the same. Some can be mixed and matched. Altus used to be the entry level and a manufacturer might use a fairly high quality suspension fork and cheap out on the components. TBH I've had everything from XTR on down; they're all adequate and they all break the same.
Electric bikes add many more variables. I wouldn't trust a $500 Chinese
bike bought from Amazon although many of the reviews are good. I got a
kick out of one 5 star review "have ridden it maybe a total of 5 miles
over the course of 3 trips,"
On Fri, 24 Oct 2025 22:13:13 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Of course. But at places like that village that was impossible, the
plots were too small. It comes from dividing the inheritance between
your sons, and they marrying and geting another plot(s) from wife,
generation after generation, for centuries. Plus, it is a valley and
there are mountains, no much flat land.
It is, was, survival agriculture, they cultivated what they could
directly eat. No selling. They did not have money. They paid the doctor
with eggs!
The US motto is 'get big or get out'. Family farms have mostly been bought
up and consolidated by agribusiness that can afford the technology. Where
I grew up was dairy country. Almost all my friends who grew up on farms
sold the herds during a government buyback in the '80s. They were working factory jobs to keep the farm afloat and saw a way out. 80 acres with
maybe 50 happy cows wandering around didn't cut it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Berry
Berry has written a lot of nonfiction but I like his Port William stories.
It makes me nostalgic for a place that is no more and isn't coming back. Maybe they can build a data center in Port William.
I believe most of the people in my mother village emigrated. My
grandparents were the first, 1930 perhaps. Now the village has people
coming back, when they retire. So there is a bar or two. Some come back
on the holidays.
I agree with you competely but the x86 machines I started with
about 20 years ago were quite weak with inadequate memory and disk
space. These were much faster than 6502/Z80/68000-68060 and the last
of those was limited to 50 MHz. I learned about disk speed slowing operations with the 8 bit machines.
On 24/10/2025 20:45, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 24 Oct 2025 10:42:54 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-10-22 23:05, rbowman wrote:
On Wed, 22 Oct 2025 14:07:01 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I never rode a bike, they scare me. Also they fascinate me, as
machines.
Speaking of which, it's up to 54 F. Time to go for a ride while the
weather holds. Mornings are frost so might as well waste time on
usenet :)
25°C yesterday afternoon-evening. Too hot for the season. Forecast is
27 for today.
It's suppose to get up to 19 C today but right now it's a little over
7.
Next week looks like highs in the 10 - 12 range. Winter is coming.
Wind 17 mph from the West/Northwest Temperature 10°C Humidity 71%
On Fri, 24 Oct 2025 22:09:50 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
I agree with you competely but the x86 machines I started with
about 20 years ago were quite weak with inadequate memory and disk
space. These were much faster than 6502/Z80/68000-68060 and the last
of those was limited to 50 MHz. I learned about disk speed slowing
operations with the 8 bit machines.
The first gen PCs with the 8088 weren't much, if any, improvement on the
CP/M Z80 boxes. It took me a while to buy a i86 box with a massive 5 MB
hard drive.
On 2025-10-25 21:43, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 24 Oct 2025 22:09:50 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
I agree with you competely but the x86 machines I started with
about 20 years ago were quite weak with inadequate memory and disk
space. These were much faster than 6502/Z80/68000-68060 and the last >>> of those was limited to 50 MHz. I learned about disk speed slowing
operations with the 8 bit machines.
The first gen PCs with the 8088 weren't much, if any, improvement on the
CP/M Z80 boxes. It took me a while to buy a i86 box with a massive 5 MB
hard drive.
To me they were. I could do college work on my first PC around 1986. Software considered "serious" appeared.
On Fri, 24 Oct 2025 22:09:50 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
I agree with you competely but the x86 machines I started with
about 20 years ago were quite weak with inadequate memory and disk
space. These were much faster than 6502/Z80/68000-68060 and the last
of those was limited to 50 MHz. I learned about disk speed slowing
operations with the 8 bit machines.
The first gen PCs with the 8088 weren't much, if any, improvement on the
CP/M Z80 boxes. It took me a while to buy a i86 box with a massive 5 MB
hard drive.
Having programmed on both, they were.
CP/M was very short of RAM and the typical machine had no standard
expansion slot.
8088 was a good step up. 386 was the next big one
On 10/25/25 16:23, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-10-25 21:43, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 24 Oct 2025 22:09:50 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
I agree with you competely but the x86 machines I started with >>>> about 20 years ago were quite weak with inadequate memory and disk
space. These were much faster than 6502/Z80/68000-68060 and the last >>>> of those was limited to 50 MHz. I learned about disk speed slowing
operations with the 8 bit machines.
The first gen PCs with the 8088 weren't much, if any, improvement on the >>> CP/M Z80 boxes. It took me a while to buy a i86 box with a massive 5 MB
hard drive.
To me they were. I could do college work on my first PC around 1986.
Software considered "serious" appeared.
Hey, decent stuff would run even on 8088 systems.
Didn't have a zillion typesetting options, but
you could still make great docs, useful sheets,
run accounting pgms, DBs, do pix/drawing. By
scaling complexity to suit the platform the
software could be relatively small/quick.
Now ... faster chips and more space = BLOAT !!!
It's like a closet, the bigger the more useless
shit you pack in there.
On Sun, 26 Oct 2025 11:00:10 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:No. A lot more
Having programmed on both, they were.
CP/M was very short of RAM and the typical machine had no standard
expansion slot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-100_bus
Many didn't allow for expansion but it wasn't a limiting factor in most cases. For S-100 there were prototype boards that plugged into the back
plane so you could roll your own.
http://www.s100computers.com/Cards%20For%20Sale.htm
8088 was a good step up. 386 was the next big one
The 8088 could only address 64K.
You could point CS, SS, DS, and ES toYou could use the long model throughout.
different 64K blocks.
accomplish much the same.
Intel formalized it in a processor that was
supposed to be a temporary fix before the iAPX 432 arrived.
The original PC ran at 4.77 MHz. Odd speed, right? The CGA adaptor needed 3.579545 for the color burst. (I don't know about the European market). 4 times 3.57945 is 14.31818. Divide that by 3 and you get 4.77277. Couple of dividers and you save the cost of a 8284 or an extra crystal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_8284
The 8088 also used the cheap 8bit peripherals from the 8080, 8085, and Z80 designs. Of course that meant limiting yourself to a 8bit data bus but
money is money.
https://vintagecomputer.com/osborne-occ-2-executive.html
I'll go with the article rather than my memory but I remember the
Executive as using the Z80B, which was a 6 MHz part. I had an Osborne 1
but bought two Executives from the Boston Globe when they were moving to
PCs.
For all practical purposes the original PC was not faster than a CP/M
system and had a hell of a lot less available software. Much of that had
been ported from CP/M and was less than efficient. Part of that was the memory models.
https://digitalmars.com/ctg/ctgMemoryModel.html
Building an executable was fun since there were 5 sets of libraries for
the 5 models.
Don't forget the 5150 (IBM Personal Computer) came with 16 KB of RAM.
Usually you needed more slots than it had since the mobo was limited.
The 5160 (XT) at least kicked the base memory up to 128 KB. It had more
slots but good luck getting some of the cards into them. You might want to toss the cover and point a fan at the thing.
The 5170 (AT) was starting to get real with wider buses and a 6 MHz processor. Let's forget the PS/2. You couldn't tell the horses apart
without a program on that mess. I think they built them from spare parts
and, arguably, were just about out of the PC business.
So, yeah, given a CP/M 3.0 system versus a bog stock 5150 I'll take the
CP/M box.
On 26/10/2025 18:40, rbowman wrote:
On Sun, 26 Oct 2025 11:00:10 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:No. A lot more
Having programmed on both, they were.
CP/M was very short of RAM and the typical machine had no standard
expansion slot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-100_bus
Many didn't allow for expansion but it wasn't a limiting factor in most
cases. For S-100 there were prototype boards that plugged into the back
plane so you could roll your own.
http://www.s100computers.com/Cards%20For%20Sale.htm
8088 was a good step up. 386 was the next big one
The 8088 could only address 64K.
The original PC ran at 4.77 MHz. Odd speed, right? The CGA adaptor neededNever used a PC with a TV. Always had a proper monitor. In fact I never
3.579545 for the color burst. (I don't know about the European market). 4
times 3.57945 is 14.31818. Divide that by 3 and you get 4.77277.
Couple of
dividers and you save the cost of a 8284 or an extra crystal.
used any computer with a TV.
On Sun, 26 Oct 2025 11:00:10 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Having programmed on both, they were.
CP/M was very short of RAM and the typical machine had no standard
expansion slot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-100_bus
Many didn't allow for expansion but it wasn't a limiting factor in most cases. For S-100 there were prototype boards that plugged into the back
plane so you could roll your own.
http://www.s100computers.com/Cards%20For%20Sale.htm
8088 was a good step up. 386 was the next big one
The 8088 could only address 64K. You could point CS, SS, DS, and ES to different 64K blocks. CP/m 3.0 could use external logic bank switching to accomplish much the same. Intel formalized it in a processor that was supposed to be a temporary fix before the iAPX 432 arrived.
The original PC ran at 4.77 MHz. Odd speed, right? The CGA adaptor needed 3.579545 for the color burst. (I don't know about the European market). 4 times 3.57945 is 14.31818. Divide that by 3 and you get 4.77277. Couple of dividers and you save the cost of a 8284 or an extra crystal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_8284
The 8088 also used the cheap 8bit peripherals from the 8080, 8085, and Z80 designs. Of course that meant limiting yourself to a 8bit data bus but
money is money.
https://vintagecomputer.com/osborne-occ-2-executive.html
I'll go with the article rather than my memory but I remember the
Executive as using the Z80B, which was a 6 MHz part. I had an Osborne 1
but bought two Executives from the Boston Globe when they were moving to
PCs.
For all practical purposes the original PC was not faster than a CP/M
system and had a hell of a lot less available software. Much of that had
been ported from CP/M and was less than efficient. Part of that was the memory models.
https://digitalmars.com/ctg/ctgMemoryModel.html
Building an executable was fun since there were 5 sets of libraries for
the 5 models.
Don't forget the 5150 (IBM Personal Computer) came with 16 KB of RAM.
Usually you needed more slots than it had since the mobo was limited.
The 5160 (XT) at least kicked the base memory up to 128 KB. It had more
slots but good luck getting some of the cards into them. You might want to toss the cover and point a fan at the thing.
The 5170 (AT) was starting to get real with wider buses and a 6 MHz processor. Let's forget the PS/2. You couldn't tell the horses apart
without a program on that mess. I think they built them from spare parts
and, arguably, were just about out of the PC business.
So, yeah, given a CP/M 3.0 system versus a bog stock 5150 I'll take the
CP/M box.
Well by the time I got to them they had a lot more of everything.
The original PC ran at 4.77 MHz. Odd speed, right? The CGA adaptor needed 3.579545 for the color burst. (I don't know about the European market). 4 times 3.57945 is 14.31818. Divide that by 3 and you get 4.77277. Couple of dividers and you save the cost of a 8284 or an extra crystal.
So, yeah, given a CP/M 3.0 system versus a bog stock 5150 I'll take the
CP/M box.
On 2025-10-26 23:19, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 26/10/2025 18:40, rbowman wrote:
On Sun, 26 Oct 2025 11:00:10 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:No. A lot more
Having programmed on both, they were.
CP/M was very short of RAM and the typical machine had no standard
expansion slot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-100_bus
Many didn't allow for expansion but it wasn't a limiting factor in most
cases. For S-100 there were prototype boards that plugged into the back
plane so you could roll your own.
http://www.s100computers.com/Cards%20For%20Sale.htm
8088 was a good step up. 386 was the next big one
The 8088 could only address 64K.
Yes, but for that you needed to write to the segment register. You could
not have (directly) a memory variable bigger than 64K.
...
The original PC ran at 4.77 MHz. Odd speed, right? The CGA adaptorNever used a PC with a TV. Always had a proper monitor. In fact I
needed
3.579545 for the color burst. (I don't know about the European
market). 4
times 3.57945 is 14.31818. Divide that by 3 and you get 4.77277.
Couple of
dividers and you save the cost of a 8284 or an extra crystal.
never used any computer with a TV.
I did use computers with a TV monitor, like the Spectrum.
What he says about the reason for the choice of frequencies is correct.
On 2025-10-26 23:19, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 26/10/2025 18:40, rbowman wrote:
On Sun, 26 Oct 2025 11:00:10 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:No. A lot more
Having programmed on both, they were.
CP/M was very short of RAM and the typical machine had no standard
expansion slot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-100_bus
Many didn't allow for expansion but it wasn't a limiting factor in most
cases. For S-100 there were prototype boards that plugged into the back
plane so you could roll your own.
http://www.s100computers.com/Cards%20For%20Sale.htm
8088 was a good step up. 386 was the next big one
The 8088 could only address 64K.
Yes, but for that you needed to write to the segment register. You could
not have (directly) a memory variable bigger than 64K.
...
The original PC ran at 4.77 MHz. Odd speed, right? The CGA adaptorNever used a PC with a TV. Always had a proper monitor. In fact I
needed
3.579545 for the color burst. (I don't know about the European
market). 4
times 3.57945 is 14.31818. Divide that by 3 and you get 4.77277.
Couple of
dividers and you save the cost of a 8284 or an extra crystal.
never used any computer with a TV.
I did use computers with a TV monitor, like the Spectrum.
What he says about the reason for the choice of frequencies is correct.
On Sun, 26 Oct 2025 22:19:23 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Well by the time I got to them they had a lot more of everything.
That explains a lot. You were late to the party.
On 10/26/25 19:48, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-10-26 23:19, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 26/10/2025 18:40, rbowman wrote:
On Sun, 26 Oct 2025 11:00:10 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:No. A lot more
Having programmed on both, they were.
CP/M was very short of RAM and the typical machine had no standard
expansion slot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-100_bus
Many didn't allow for expansion but it wasn't a limiting factor in most >>>> cases. For S-100 there were prototype boards that plugged into the back >>>> plane so you could roll your own.
http://www.s100computers.com/Cards%20For%20Sale.htm
8088 was a good step up. 386 was the next big one
The 8088 could only address 64K.
Yes, but for that you needed to write to the segment register. You
could not have (directly) a memory variable bigger than 64K.
They found cheats for that really soon.
...
The original PC ran at 4.77 MHz. Odd speed, right? The CGA adaptorNever used a PC with a TV. Always had a proper monitor. In fact I
needed
3.579545 for the color burst. (I don't know about the European
market). 4
times 3.57945 is 14.31818. Divide that by 3 and you get 4.77277.
Couple of
dividers and you save the cost of a 8284 or an extra crystal.
never used any computer with a TV.
I did use computers with a TV monitor, like the Spectrum.
What he says about the reason for the choice of frequencies is correct.
Had a VIC-20 with a TV as a monitor. OK.
I found the 5150 to be a massive yawn. It wasn't until the Amiga came
along that I got excited enough to buy a new machine.
On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 03:07:24 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I found the 5150 to be a massive yawn. It wasn't until the Amiga came
along that I got excited enough to buy a new machine.
In that era people would ask me 'You work with computers.' What kind
should I buy?' I didn't have a good answer. I made my living with
computers but I wasn't sure what Joe Sixpack would do with one.
Some nerds did find uses but there were many TRS-80s, PETs, PC Jrs, TI
99s, and so forth gathering dust because people were buying them in sort
of a madness of crowds.
I found the 5150 to be a massive yawn. It wasn't until the Amiga
came along that I got excited enough to buy a new machine.
In that era people would ask me 'You work with computers.' What kind
should I buy?' I didn't have a good answer. I made my living with
computers but I wasn't sure what Joe Sixpack would do with one.
Some nerds did find uses but there were many TRS-80s, PETs, PC Jrs,
TI 99s, and so forth gathering dust because people were buying them
in sort of a madness of crowds.
(Frankly, I'm of the opinion that "Joe Sixpack" is a myth, a kind of
median figure arrived at by shaving all the corners off of real people
so that they can be more-or-less jammed into a preconceived round hole; unfortunately, it's a myth with a great deal of utility to the Powers
That Be, who have expended a tremendous amount of social-engineering
effort in the last 20 years trying to convince people that the Median
Human is "normal" and what they should want to be. It's encouraging to
see the recent boom in craft hobbies and makerspace groups indicating
that they haven't been quite as successful as I worried they had.)
On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 03:07:24 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I found the 5150 to be a massive yawn. It wasn't until the Amiga came
along that I got excited enough to buy a new machine.
In that era people would ask me 'You work with computers.' What kind
should I buy?' I didn't have a good answer. I made my living with
computers but I wasn't sure what Joe Sixpack would do with one.
Some nerds did find uses but there were many TRS-80s, PETs, PC Jrs, TI
99s, and so forth gathering dust because people were buying them in sort
of a madness of crowds.
On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 03:07:24 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I found the 5150 to be a massive yawn. It wasn't until the Amiga came
along that I got excited enough to buy a new machine.
In that era people would ask me 'You work with computers.' What kind
should I buy?' I didn't have a good answer. I made my living with
computers but I wasn't sure what Joe Sixpack would do with one.
Some nerds did find uses but there were many TRS-80s, PETs, PC Jrs, TI
99s, and so forth gathering dust because people were buying them in sort
of a madness of crowds.
On 27 Oct 2025 14:26:10 GMT
rbowman <[email protected]> wrote:
<snip>
I recall my mother, f'rexample, branching out into MIDI arrangement not because she'd had any plans to do so, but because my dad brought home a cast-off Mac from his workplace and we'd coincidentally just bought a
digital piano to replace our bulky old upright. Nothing world-changing,
but a good example of what people learned by just playing around. It's
a shame to see what's become of the industry - for a minute there, we
really did get a little taste of what computer-as-assistive-tool-for- the-individual-mind could do for people...
<snip>--
On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 03:07:24 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I found the 5150 to be a massive yawn. It wasn't until the Amiga came
along that I got excited enough to buy a new machine.
In that era people would ask me 'You work with computers.' What kind
should I buy?' I didn't have a good answer. I made my living with
computers but I wasn't sure what Joe Sixpack would do with one.
Some nerds did find uses but there were many TRS-80s, PETs, PC Jrs, TI
99s, and so forth gathering dust because people were buying them in sort
of a madness of crowds.
On 27/10/2025 14:26, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 03:07:24 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:Well that era answered the question of 'what did people want computers
I found the 5150 to be a massive yawn. It wasn't until the Amiga came
along that I got excited enough to buy a new machine.
In that era people would ask me 'You work with computers.' What kind
should I buy?' I didn't have a good answer. I made my living with
computers but I wasn't sure what Joe Sixpack would do with one.
Some nerds did find uses but there were many TRS-80s, PETs, PC Jrs, TI
99s, and so forth gathering dust because people were buying them in
sort of a madness of crowds.
for'?
On 8 bit machines...arcade games. Free arcade games.
Once the internet took off? Porn.
John Ames wrote this post by blinking in Morse code:
On 27 Oct 2025 14:26:10 GMT rbowman <[email protected]> wrote:
<snip>
I recall my mother, f'rexample, branching out into MIDI arrangement not
because she'd had any plans to do so, but because my dad brought home a
cast-off Mac from his workplace and we'd coincidentally just bought a
digital piano to replace our bulky old upright. Nothing world-changing,
but a good example of what people learned by just playing around. It's
a shame to see what's become of the industry - for a minute there, we
really did get a little taste of what computer-as-assistive-tool-for-
the-individual-mind could do for people...
The Atari ST and a Casio 8-note keyboard got me started in MIDI.
The Atari ST and a Casio 8-note keyboard got me started in MIDI.
Says something about me that I've never done anything with MIDI or
had any interest in it. otoh, lemme see, I've got 3 acoustic guitars,
one of which is a 12 string, 2 electric guitars, a banjo, a silver
flute, a couple of Irish flutes, a bunch of tin whistles in various
keys, several harmonicas in different keys, an alto recorder, and an
ocarina. Never did figure out the ocarina. Should have went with
MIDI; like e-books it takes a lot less room.
On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 14:31:36 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 27/10/2025 14:26, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 03:07:24 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:Well that era answered the question of 'what did people want computers
I found the 5150 to be a massive yawn. It wasn't until the Amiga came >>>> along that I got excited enough to buy a new machine.
In that era people would ask me 'You work with computers.' What kind
should I buy?' I didn't have a good answer. I made my living with
computers but I wasn't sure what Joe Sixpack would do with one.
Some nerds did find uses but there were many TRS-80s, PETs, PC Jrs, TI
99s, and so forth gathering dust because people were buying them in
sort of a madness of crowds.
for'?
On 8 bit machines...arcade games. Free arcade games.
Once the internet took off? Porn.
I'm thinking of a different demographic, what would be comparable to a
boomer today. 'Greatest generation'? According to Wiki, the TI-99/4 was $1150 or the equivalent of $4980 in 2024. The PET would be $4100 in 2024. Apple II? $6740. The 5150 PC, $5410. Even the TRS-80 would be $3110 or
the Amiga at $3786 . The Osborne 1 I bought in '81 was $1795 in '81, or
$6210 today.
The VIC-20 at $1040 2024 dollars was getting into an affordable area.
The people I'm thinking off that could drop $4 or 5K on a computer
probably weren't into arcade games. That's a hell of a lot of quarters.
Maybe mom bought a computer and junior figured out something to do with
it.
B.B. KING LOVES MIDIflown/>
<https://8bitlegends.com/2015/05/16/b-b-king-mr-amiga-blues-has-
On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 14:31:36 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 27/10/2025 14:26, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 03:07:24 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:Well that era answered the question of 'what did people want computers
I found the 5150 to be a massive yawn. It wasn't until the Amiga came >>>> along that I got excited enough to buy a new machine.
In that era people would ask me 'You work with computers.' What kind
should I buy?' I didn't have a good answer. I made my living with
computers but I wasn't sure what Joe Sixpack would do with one.
Some nerds did find uses but there were many TRS-80s, PETs, PC Jrs, TI
99s, and so forth gathering dust because people were buying them in
sort of a madness of crowds.
for'?
On 8 bit machines...arcade games. Free arcade games.
Once the internet took off? Porn.
I'm thinking of a different demographic, what would be comparable to a
boomer today. 'Greatest generation'? According to Wiki, the TI-99/4 was $1150 or the equivalent of $4980 in 2024. The PET would be $4100 in 2024. Apple II? $6740. The 5150 PC, $5410. Even the TRS-80 would be $3110 or
the Amiga at $3786 . The Osborne 1 I bought in '81 was $1795 in '81, or
$6210 today.
The VIC-20 at $1040 2024 dollars was getting into an affordable area.
The people I'm thinking off that could drop $4 or 5K on a computer
probably weren't into arcade games. That's a hell of a lot of quarters.
Maybe mom bought a computer and junior figured out something to do with
it.
I got other used laptops and before i I paid about $600 for theDell
Precision refurbished. That came out of Covid supplemental payments
when I found out that they were going to penalize those of us who had >$2000.00 in our bank accounts.
Says something about me that I've never done anything with MIDI or had any interest in it. otoh, lemme see, I've got 3 acoustic guitars, one of which is a 12 string, 2 electric guitars, a banjo, a silver flute, a couple of Irish flutes, a bunch of tin whistles in various keys, several harmonicas
in different keys, an alto recorder, and an ocarina. Never did figure out the ocarina. Should have went with MIDI; like e-books it takes a lot less room.
When the Amiga 1000 was on the market it was nearly $2000 and needed
an expensive monitor. I got the Monitor before the Amiga aand bought a
used A1000 for $100.00 and a keyboard adapter for $20. I spent a few hundred on a used A2000b and spent a lot of money on delacer card, Video card, serial card and a few other things like modems finally I got a 68060 card which took more ram simms than I had the cash for at the time.
I got other used laptops and before i I paid about $600 for
the Dell Precision refurbished. That came out of Covid supplemental
payments when I found out that they were going to penalize those of
us who had >$2000.00 in our bank accounts.
Several printers mostly used and the new ones very short lives
without their own makers' cartridges apparently.
Alas, remember buying an Amiga-1000 (using TWO checks)
and it was nothing but "Guru Meditation" messages all
the damned time. Threw it in a closet and bought a
much cheaper IBM clone instead almost immediately.
On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 13:42:51 -0400, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
B.B. KING LOVES MIDIflown/>
<https://8bitlegends.com/2015/05/16/b-b-king-mr-amiga-blues-has-
He would... He never could keep time. My favorite blues guy, Lightnin' Hopkins could keep a steady beat but the concept of 12 bar blues was
foreign territory. A bar was as long as it needed to be. He was a street musician and a solo act.
<snip>
The VIC-20 at $1040 2024 dollars was getting into an affordable area.
The people I'm thinking off that could drop $4 or 5K on a computer
probably weren't into arcade games. That's a hell of a lot of quarters.
Maybe mom bought a computer and junior figured out something to do with--
it.
On 2025-10-27, Bobbie Sellers <[email protected]> wrote:
When the Amiga 1000 was on the market it was nearly $2000 and needed
<snip>
That sounds a lot like my Amiga history. I spent $2000 for the A1000
in March 1986, as well as $600 for the monitor, $300 for an external
3 1/2" floppy drive, and $600 for an external 5 1/4" floppy drive
(complete with the Transformer, an MS-DOS emulator). Plus lots of
bucks for two A2000s (one for me and one for my wife, 68020 and 68030, finally working up to 68060), and something like $1800 for bridge boards
(286 and 386SX). (Work was going well and I had some money to burn.)
--<snip>
On 27 Oct 2025 20:53:45 GMT
rbowman <[email protected]> wrote:
The Atari ST and a Casio 8-note keyboard got me started in MIDI.
Says something about me that I've never done anything with MIDI or
had any interest in it. otoh, lemme see, I've got 3 acoustic guitars,
one of which is a 12 string, 2 electric guitars, a banjo, a silver
flute, a couple of Irish flutes, a bunch of tin whistles in various
keys, several harmonicas in different keys, an alto recorder, and an
ocarina. Never did figure out the ocarina. Should have went with
MIDI; like e-books it takes a lot less room.
If it's any consolation, getting into MIDI just means you accumulate
hardware synthesizers instead of/in addition to the above ;)
If it's any consolation, getting into MIDI just means you accumulate hardware synthesizers instead of/in addition to the above ;)
There's a shit-ton of software synthesizer apps for Linux,
Windows, and Mac. But I do have the following hardware:
- Roland MT-32 synth. Bought that living in L.A., from a guy
who was a colleague of Herbie Hancock and who also owned
an Atari ST.
(Softsynths are certainly convenient wrt. space and price, but there's
a certain primal itch with twiddling controls on a dedicated panel that >multipurpose MIDI controllers just don't scratch...)
On 2025-10-28, c186282 <[email protected]> wrote:
Alas, remember buying an Amiga-1000 (using TWO checks)
and it was nothing but "Guru Meditation" messages all
the damned time. Threw it in a closet and bought a
much cheaper IBM clone instead almost immediately.
I threw the buggy software on the trash heap instead,
and replaced it with stuff that didn't scribble all over
memory that didn't belong to it. Admittedly, the lack
of memory protection was a pain - but it was nice to have
real multitasking.
In addition to a couple of regular boxes, I'll spend $300 or so whenever
I need a new (to me) laptop. ThinkPads run Linux well.
Since I was an Atari ST boy I would log onto a Commodore BBS and make
fun of "commode ore". The early days of trolling.
There's a shit-ton of software synthesizer apps for Linux,
Windows, and Mac. But I do have the following hardware:
I use MIDI software to translate melodies from my head to sheet
notation, so that I can then check them and finally convert them to
ASCII, like, can you guess the name of this song (notation only
approximately!)?
I owned a Korg MS-20 and a Korg PS-3100.
I use MIDI software to translate melodies from my head to sheet
notation, so that I can then check them and finally convert them
to ASCII, like, can you guess the name of this song (notation only
approximately!)?
Hah, that rings a vague bell, but I can't place it. I'm curious, what
do you use the ASCII representations for...?
Hah, that rings a vague bell, but I can't place it. I'm curious, what
do you use the ASCII representations for...?
I used the ASCII representation in a German newsgroup to ask for the
name of the song trying to avoid media disruptions like web links in
Usenet posts or binaries in a non-binary group.
Turned out it's, "I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman".
Interesting. I generally notate melodies on my "sketchpad" documents
with note names and a few simple conventions for rhythmic information:
G-G G E-G C' C
...which is imprecise, but it's for my own reference so it's non-
critical.
rbowman wrote this post by blinking in Morse code:
<snip>
The VIC-20 at $1040 2024 dollars was getting into an affordable area.
That was my first computer, bought while in grad school. Also
bought the cassette tape drive and the 300-baud modem cartridge.
Used it and a TV to log into the university system. 22-column
text IIRC. Later bought an assembler cartridge.
Then ditched it all for an Atari ST and Atari printer at
<laughing> Toys 'R Us. Bought the Atari monochrome monitor at a
local computer store; the owner was peeved I hadn't bought the
rest from him. Bought a 10 Mb hard-drive that was as loud as a
vacuum cleaner. I and another Atari club guy opened the ST up
and piggy-backed RAM chips on top the existing chips to get to
1 Mb RAM. I had a hella lotta fun with that ST.
Nowadays my hella-lotta-fun is Linux!
The people I'm thinking off that could drop $4 or 5K on a computer
probably weren't into arcade games. That's a hell of a lot of quarters.
We have certain priorities :-)
Maybe mom bought a computer and junior figured out something to do with
it.
The 'old' popular computers DID build up the craft considerably.
There were suddenly a lot more programmers/designers than the biz/sci environment would have ever created.
On Wed, 29 Oct 2025 02:12:50 -0400
c186282 <[email protected]> wrote:
The 'old' popular computers DID build up the craft considerably.
There were suddenly a lot more programmers/designers than the biz/sci
environment would have ever created.
Yeah - the *personal* aspect of the personal-computer revolution is the
most noted, and rightly so, but it's important to remember that it was
also how computing went from Big Business to small business, and,
funnily enough, became Big Business in the process. Lotta independent software shops came outta some hobbyist spotting an unfilled niche and cobbling something together to fill it, in those days - I still work
for the remnants of one.
It was a huge explosion of skills that found many (and many
*profitable*) business lines down the road.
Without PCs, well, I think it'd all still be Big Iron and paper punch
tape ...
On Wed, 29 Oct 2025 21:30:48 -0400, c186282 wrote:
It was a huge explosion of skills that found many (and many
*profitable*) business lines down the road.
Without PCs, well, I think it'd all still be Big Iron and paper punch
tape ...
I took a slightly different path via hardware industrial control systems
to early MCUs but I had about zero interest in FORTRAN on System 360
iron.
Hey, it had it's place - an important place. However tastes/interests
vary.
"Industrial"/embedded is very interesting, and useful,
unto itself.
I'm just wondering what 'modern computing' would look like without
the cheap 'home pc' push.
IBMs vision has always been thin clients with everything...again...
running on big iron. MS is going that way too. Works like a champ unless somebody screws up AWS's DNS.
On Thu, 30 Oct 2025 00:49:41 -0400, c186282 wrote:
Hey, it had it's place - an important place. However tastes/interests
vary.
"Industrial"/embedded is very interesting, and useful,
unto itself.
I'm just wondering what 'modern computing' would look like without
the cheap 'home pc' push.
Chromebooks... IBMs vision has always been thin clients with everything running on big iron. MS is going that way too. Works like a champ unless somebody screws up AWS's DNS.
On 30/10/2025 06:29, rbowman wrote:
IBMs vision has always been thin clients with everything
running on big iron. MS is going that way too. Works like a champ unless >> somebody screws up AWS's DNS.
...again...
On 10/30/25 02:29, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2025 00:49:41 -0400, c186282 wrote:
Hey, it had it's place - an important place. However
tastes/interests
vary.
"Industrial"/embedded is very interesting, and useful,
unto itself.
I'm just wondering what 'modern computing' would look like without >>> the cheap 'home pc' push.
Chromebooks... IBMs vision has always been thin clients with everything
running on big iron. MS is going that way too. Works like a champ unless >> somebody screws up AWS's DNS.
AND you have a really high speed connection ...
The "big iron" push is all about $$$ and Control, not
freedom and variety and innovation.
On 10/30/25 03:00, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 30/10/2025 06:29, rbowman wrote:
IBMs vision has always been thin clients with everything
running on big iron. MS is going that way too. Works like a champ
unless
somebody screws up AWS's DNS.
...again...
Yea ... that's getting more common - and Vlad/Xi are
helping it along.
I see the Azure cloud had a big problem just yesterday.
AWS a couple days before.
On 10/30/25 02:29, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2025 00:49:41 -0400, c186282 wrote:
Hey, it had it's place - an important place. However
tastes/interests vary.
"Industrial"/embedded is very interesting, and useful,
unto itself.
I'm just wondering what 'modern computing' would look like without
the cheap 'home pc' push.
Chromebooks... IBMs vision has always been thin clients with everything
running on big iron. MS is going that way too. Works like a champ
unless somebody screws up AWS's DNS.
AND you have a really high speed connection ...
On Thu, 30 Oct 2025 11:29:50 -0400, c186282 wrote:
On 10/30/25 02:29, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2025 00:49:41 -0400, c186282 wrote:
Hey, it had it's place - an important place. However
tastes/interests vary.
"Industrial"/embedded is very interesting, and useful,
unto itself.
I'm just wondering what 'modern computing' would look like
without the cheap 'home pc' push.
Chromebooks... IBMs vision has always been thin clients with
everything running on big iron. MS is going that way too. Works like
a champ unless somebody screws up AWS's DNS.
AND you have a really high speed connection ...
AOL on dialup. Enuf said.
https://www.newsnationnow.com/business/tech/tech-headlines/ap-ai-is-transforming-how-software-engineers-do-their-jobs-just-dont-call-it-vibe-coding/
Progress ? Progress to doom ?
I have seen many imposed on us and I ignored all of them. The only one I thought was kind of useful was "structured",
which came around where I worked in the early 80s.
On Fri, 31 Oct 2025 16:52:14 -0000 (UTC), John McCue wrote:
I have seen many imposed on us and I ignored all of them. The only one I
thought was kind of useful was "structured",
which came around where I worked in the early 80s.
Yeah, back then you had to swear loyalty to top down structured
programming although like the rest of the methodologies it seldom was implemented in a pure fashion.
My favorite is what has been called the yo-yo method. Develop a loose top down view and then work on the bottom implementation to see if it's feasible. Refine the top level, rinse and repeat. They started to call it agile like they'd discovered something new.
On 2025-10-31, rbowman <[email protected]> wrote:
On Fri, 31 Oct 2025 16:52:14 -0000 (UTC), John McCue wrote:
I have seen many imposed on us and I ignored all of them. The only one I >>> thought was kind of useful was "structured",
which came around where I worked in the early 80s.
Yeah, back then you had to swear loyalty to top down structured
programming although like the rest of the methodologies it seldom was
implemented in a pure fashion.
I thought of it as a fad - a potentially useful one, but one that
was often abused. The number of function calls in a program became
a figure of merit, and programs turned into a huge pile of tiny
functions bound together by an impenetrable web of nested calls.
I proclaimed it as the final triumph of bureaucracy: its success
at finally penetrating the world of programming.
My favorite is what has been called the yo-yo method. Develop a loose top
down view and then work on the bottom implementation to see if it's
feasible. Refine the top level, rinse and repeat. They started to call it
agile like they'd discovered something new.
Stan Kelly-Bootle, in _The Devil's DP Dictionary_, offered an ecumenical solution to the "top-down" vs. "bottom-up" conflict with a technique that
he described as "middle-out".
On Fri, 31 Oct 2025 16:52:14 -0000 (UTC), John McCue wrote:
I have seen many imposed on us and I ignored all of them. The only one I
thought was kind of useful was "structured",
which came around where I worked in the early 80s.
Yeah, back then you had to swear loyalty to top down structured
programming although like the rest of the methodologies it seldom was implemented in a pure fashion.
My favorite is what has been called the yo-yo method. Develop a loose top down view and then work on the bottom implementation to see if it's
feasible. Refine the top level, rinse and repeat. They started to call it agile like they'd discovered something new.
On 31/10/2025 20:19, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 31 Oct 2025 16:52:14 -0000 (UTC), John McCue wrote:
I have seen many imposed on us and I ignored all of them. The only one I >>> thought was kind of useful was "structured",
which came around where I worked in the early 80s.
Yeah, back then you had to swear loyalty to top down structured
programming although like the rest of the methodologies it seldom was
implemented in a pure fashion.
My favorite is what has been called the yo-yo method. Develop a loose top
down view and then work on the bottom implementation to see if it's
feasible. Refine the top level, rinse and repeat. They started to call it
agile like they'd discovered something new.
Agree 100%
A way I now write is to simply write essentially pseudo code, describing
in plain english what I want the code to do, and then turn that into comments with the real code in between.
And to try and farm everything off to subroutines whenever possible. So
that each code block is only half a page if possible.
On 2025-11-01, The Natural Philosopher <[email protected]d> wrote:
On 31/10/2025 20:19, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 31 Oct 2025 16:52:14 -0000 (UTC), John McCue wrote:
I have seen many imposed on us and I ignored all of them. The only one I >>>> thought was kind of useful was "structured",
which came around where I worked in the early 80s.
Yeah, back then you had to swear loyalty to top down structured
programming although like the rest of the methodologies it seldom was
implemented in a pure fashion.
My favorite is what has been called the yo-yo method. Develop a loose top >>> down view and then work on the bottom implementation to see if it's
feasible. Refine the top level, rinse and repeat. They started to call it >>> agile like they'd discovered something new.
Agree 100%
A way I now write is to simply write essentially pseudo code, describing
in plain english what I want the code to do, and then turn that into
comments with the real code in between.
And to try and farm everything off to subroutines whenever possible. So
that each code block is only half a page if possible.
I saw some code that took that to extremes. That half-page limit
included a huge comment block describing what the function did and
what its arguments were. That left room for half a dozen lines of
real code.
Back in the good old days we had cross-reference utilities to
help keep track of everything. Those seem to have disappeared,
although to be honest a text editor with good searching and
bookmarking eliminates much of the need.
Small modules are a sign of a short attention span. 1/2 :-)
I saw some code that took that to extremes. That half-page limit
included a huge comment block describing what the function did and what
its arguments were. That left room for half a dozen lines of real code.
Back in the good old days we had cross-reference utilities to help keep
track of everything. Those seem to have disappeared, although to be
honest a text editor with good searching and bookmarking eliminates much
of the need.
Almost always use a 'dumb' editor. Delphi/Lazarus have their own
built-in editor and that's more than enough, indeed maybe so many
options that they get confusing. Tried a couple of the Python
'development environments'
and again switched back to dumb editors after awhile because those
were TOO complicated.
On 11/1/25 13:32, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-11-01, The Natural Philosopher <[email protected]d> wrote:
On 31/10/2025 20:19, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 31 Oct 2025 16:52:14 -0000 (UTC), John McCue wrote:
I have seen many imposed on us and I ignored all of them. The only one I >>>>> thought was kind of useful was "structured",
which came around where I worked in the early 80s.
Yeah, back then you had to swear loyalty to top down structured
programming although like the rest of the methodologies it seldom was
implemented in a pure fashion.
My favorite is what has been called the yo-yo method. Develop a loose top >>>> down view and then work on the bottom implementation to see if it's
feasible. Refine the top level, rinse and repeat. They started to call it >>>> agile like they'd discovered something new.
Agree 100%
A way I now write is to simply write essentially pseudo code, describing >>> in plain english what I want the code to do, and then turn that into
comments with the real code in between.
And to try and farm everything off to subroutines whenever possible. So
that each code block is only half a page if possible.
I saw some code that took that to extremes. That half-page limit
included a huge comment block describing what the function did and
what its arguments were. That left room for half a dozen lines of
real code.
Hey - looks like MY programs !!! The comment section
is often larger than the actual code - not only about
the params but also a little synopsis of the WHY.
Oh, and usually a brief end-comment on almost every line
narrating the action :-)
I'd update those over maybe a decade ... so all the
'over-documentation' was very USEFUL - so *I* would
understand the what and why after a gap. 'C' got the
most doc, Pascal and Python are a little more self
documenting, easier to read.
Back in the good old days we had cross-reference utilities to
help keep track of everything. Those seem to have disappeared,
although to be honest a text editor with good searching and
bookmarking eliminates much of the need.
Small modules are a sign of a short attention span. 1/2 :-)
Almost always use a 'dumb' editor. Delphi/Lazarus have
their own built-in editor and that's more than enough,
indeed maybe so many options that they get confusing.
Tried a couple of the Python 'development environments'
and again switched back to dumb editors after awhile
because those were TOO complicated.
Too much 'help' is no help at all.
Python ... open it in like FeatherPad and open a terminal
window. Edit, run in the terminal, note any errors, go
back to FeatherPad, repeat. Quick and easy.
Back in the good old days we had cross-reference utilities to help keep
track of everything. Those seem to have disappeared, although to be
honest a text editor with good searching and bookmarking eliminates much
of the need.
I used cscope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cscope
On Sat, 01 Nov 2025 17:32:32 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Back in the good old days we had cross-reference utilities to help keep
track of everything. Those seem to have disappeared, although to be
honest a text editor with good searching and bookmarking eliminates much
of the need.
I used cscope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cscope
rbowman <[email protected]> wrote:
On Sat, 01 Nov 2025 17:32:32 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:<snip>
Back in the good old days we had cross-reference utilities to help keep
track of everything. Those seem to have disappeared, although to be
honest a text editor with good searching and bookmarking eliminates much >>> of the need.
I used cscope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cscope
I have kept cflow1.c for a long time, I have do idea were
it came from, but you can get it by doing:
curl 'gopher://sdf.org/0/users/jmccue/fun/cflow1.c' > cflow1.c
A couple of times I've been faced with nasty bugs that I figured would
be tracked down with an interactive debugger.
But after I found myself playing Twenty Questions with the IDE long
enough, creating project files many times the size of the actualy code
and still not getting to where I could actually do some testing, I gave
up and went back to my old standby of sprinkling printf()s through the
code. (More accurately, I call my homebrewed logging function that
appends messages to a log file.)
John McCue <[email protected]d> wrote:<snip>
I have kept cflow1.c for a long time, I have do idea were
it came from, but you can get it by doing:
curl 'gopher://sdf.org/0/users/jmccue/fun/cflow1.c' > cflow1.c
Neat, though you need to define "REV" to get that to build:
gcc -o cflow cflow1.c -DREV='"R1"'
There's also a GNU version:
http://www.gnu.org/software/cflow/
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