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Awesome article OP, thanks for linking it here; I've been looking for something along these lines for the Amiga for a while, actually. Tangentially related: if

Awesome article OP, thanks for linking it here; I've been looking for something along these lines for the Amiga for a while, actually. Tangentially related: if you haven't already, I'd suggest dabbling in development for these "retro" systems. Not only will they teach you about memory management, &c but you will also be able to familiarize yourself with architecture of decades past. Much like a Shakespearean scholar doesn't just reader William's texts, but also attempts to understand the sociopolitical climate in which they were written; so, too, ought a proficient programmer see where she has come from to integrate not just "best practices" but an optimism which guides her progress. Or one could just read Stack Overflow. shrugs

nallerooth 9y ago
Thanks! I'm hoping to find some time for this and learn enough to be able to create something Amiga-ish for our next hackday at work.
t0mek 9y ago
BTW, there's a Stack Overflow for the retro computing: https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/ https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/
logiseye 9y ago
Checkout this series of video tutorials by Photon of Scoopex :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p83QUZ1-P10&list=PLc3ltHgmiidpK-s0eP5hTKJnjdTHz0_bW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p83QUZ1-P10&list=PLc3ltHgmii...
jl6 9y ago
I'm a huge Amiga fan, but what is there to learn from it that couldn't be obtained by working at the lower levels of a modern system?
- Frenchgeek 9y ago
  Well, unlike modern machines, the system was made to be simple enough to understand while being as powerful as possible. Modern computers, on the other hand, have to either up the complexity by quite a bit and keep the power ( trying to rewrite an old and simplistic DOS based mandelbrot set generator for modern system got me mostly battling my misundertanding of SDL: putting bytes in A000 was way simpler. ) or sacrifice power by going back a generation or two...
- white-flame 9y ago
  Devices are memory-mapped without going through many nested protocols (USB, PCIe, etc). What drivers do is completely transparent. Library calls are a simple subroutine which jumps into the real details, without a privilege barrier. Much of the accessibility of the architecture is that it's a single address space, with no MMU interference to speak of (later models had MMUs, but where only used for a few enhancements here & there at best). Besides, 680x0 code is much more pleasant to deal with than x86. But that's the case for pretty much any non-x86 ISA. ;-)

nallerooth 9y ago

Thanks! I'm hoping to find some time for this and learn enough to be able to create something Amiga-ish for our next hackday at work.

t0mek 9y ago

BTW, there's a Stack Overflow for the retro computing: https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/ https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/

logiseye 9y ago

Checkout this series of video tutorials by Photon of Scoopex :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p83QUZ1-P10&list=PLc3ltHgmiidpK-s0eP5hTKJnjdTHz0_bW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p83QUZ1-P10&list=PLc3ltHgmii...

jl6 9y ago

I'm a huge Amiga fan, but what is there to learn from it that couldn't be obtained by working at the lower levels of a modern system?

Frenchgeek 9y ago
Well, unlike modern machines, the system was made to be simple enough to understand while being as powerful as possible. Modern computers, on the other hand, have to either up the complexity by quite a bit and keep the power ( trying to rewrite an old and simplistic DOS based mandelbrot set generator for modern system got me mostly battling my misundertanding of SDL: putting bytes in A000 was way simpler. ) or sacrifice power by going back a generation or two...
white-flame 9y ago
Devices are memory-mapped without going through many nested protocols (USB, PCIe, etc). What drivers do is completely transparent. Library calls are a simple subroutine which jumps into the real details, without a privilege barrier. Much of the accessibility of the architecture is that it's a single address space, with no MMU interference to speak of (later models had MMUs, but where only used for a few enhancements here & there at best). Besides, 680x0 code is much more pleasant to deal with than x86. But that's the case for pretty much any non-x86 ISA. ;-)