3 ms·
In my experience, there was a big difference between DOS, where programming tools were relatively easy to find, and Windows, where they weren't. Until widesprea
by kbolino 2y ago
In my experience, there was a big difference between DOS, where programming tools were relatively easy to find, and Windows, where they weren't. Until widespread Internet access, programming on Windows as a kid required finding the rare adult who had access to the tools.
- giancarlostoro 2y agoDownloading VB6 on dial up was torture as a 12 year old.
- pjmlp 2y agoFind where? Not in 1980's Portugal.
- anthk 2y agoMaybe he meant debug.com. Not easy in the 90's in Spain neither. And Visual C++ under Win32 from pirated CD's was a nightware to start with. In the 20000's, an early 3-DVD release (Sarge) was like night and day. Properly documented with all the manuals obtainable either thru Synaptic or the bundled magazine-book.
- hyperman1 2y agoGwbasic and later qbasic were delivered with MS-DOS
- pjmlp 2y agoYeah, but beyond the learning to program steps, it was about time to acquire programming environments for Quick/Turbo Pascal, NASM/TASM, Turbo/Quick Basic, Clipper DBase,... by whatever means, and the same for the knowledge how to use them, on an offline first world. And for this, one had to be curious, track down people with knowledge, either from computer magazines ads, hanging around electronic stores, eventually find people with similar interests, to meet them physically.
- anthk 2y agoExactly this. In Spain, 90's gaming was either the Game Boy or the Play Station, and PS2 in early 00's. Computers were for offices and most people began to use them at libraries and in early 00's, tons of people had a PC at home but download stuff from cybercafes. Getting developer stuff from magazines was mandatory, but these were pretty expensive and the materials sucked a lot.
- hyperman1 2y agoThere are other paths. In my case, I had no access to software from other people, but the library had tons of old books for programming all kinds of computers in mistly basic. So first I learned translating commodore etc to gwbasic. The peek and poke gave a trapdoor to assembly, which granted e.g. mouse access. After I managed to install gwbasic as a TSR, I realized I basically had hollowed out the interpretrr, and started writing straight in debug.com. It took 3 years before I discovered MIX C in a dusty corner of a bookshop. It cost a fortune for this kid, and frequently miscompiled things, but it was one of the first pieces of software I got that didn't come with the computer.
- kbolino 2y agoMy experience was growing up in a semi-rural area in the U.S. in the 90s. At that time, DOS software was plentiful, but rarely purchased and usually shared over floppies. The users tended to be geeks, and so they had some pretty sharp tools on hand. Whereas, in the age of Windows, especially 95 and on, copy protection became stronger, the user base expanded massively, demand shifted to office apps and games, and software started to grow too big to fit on a reasonable number of floppies. This transition happened while I was a young child, so perhaps it was just poor timing, but still it seemed like DOS was a sea of open possibility while Windows required a bank account which I didn't have.
- int_19h 2y agoIn countries where software piracy was the norm (e.g. most of Eastern Europe) I can't say I recall there being a difference. Turbo Pascal and Turbo C++ were pervasive because they were just copied around on floppies as needed - that's how most schools would end up with them, for example. But, a few years later, people would similarly share e.g. Delphi.
- nyrikki 2y agoThe major book sellers like Barns and Nobel carried them...even bought the OS/2 version of Borland C++ there.