3 ms·

> I once, for a side gig, had to write a 16-bit long-division routine on a processor with only one 8-bit accumulator. That was the point at which I declared tha

> I once, for a side gig, had to write a 16-bit long-division routine on a processor with only one 8-bit accumulator. That was the point at which I declared that I'd never write another assembly program. This is exactly the kind of job I'd enjoy! A perfectly doable technical challenge with clear requirements. Some people like solving Sudoku puzzles, I like solving programming puzzles. I guess I'm just not "the overwhelming majority of programmers".

markus_zhang 1y ago
I totally agree. I read and commented the source code of Woz's SWEET16 and it was a blast to fully understand it. But of course, might not be that rosy if under great time constraints.
HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
> doable technical challenge with clear requirements That's a Project Management issue, not an implementation concern. In my case, there was no requirement that said "use 16-bit long division." However, we had committed to a particular processor family (MC68HC05), and the calculation precision required 16-bit math. IIRC, there was a compiler available, but it cost more than the rest of the project and the code it produced wouldn't have fit into the variant of the processor that I was using anyway. The actual requirement would have looked more like "detect a 0.1% decrease in signal that persists for 10 seconds, then do X."
- Animats 1y ago
  Oh, yes, that era. I had to program a MC68HC11 in Forth because the C compiler was so expensive.
  - markus_zhang 1y ago
    Man what a blast!
commandlinefan 1y ago
> the kind of job I'd enjoy I feel the same way, but I also can't help but imagine the boss jumping up and down and throwing chairs and screaming "how can you not be done yet? You're a programmer and this is a program and it's been three _hours_ already".
favorited 1y ago
I think the majority of programmers would enjoy it, but most would first need to pick an ISA (something older is probably going to be more approachable for beginners), learn enough about it to understand basic arithmetic instructions, learn enough about the dev tools to be able to assemble, link, and execute their code, etc. For most folks, that's going to be a couple days of prep work before they can get to the fun part of solving the puzzle.
1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago
"I guess I'm just not the "overwhelming majority of programmers"." The "overwhelming" majority of programmers may be underwhelming Some readers may be unimpressed by programmers who complain about and criticise assembly language, e.g., claiming it offers "no benefit" to others, especially when no one is forcing these programmers to use it

markus_zhang 1y ago

I totally agree. I read and commented the source code of Woz's SWEET16 and it was a blast to fully understand it. But of course, might not be that rosy if under great time constraints.

HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago

> doable technical challenge with clear requirements That's a Project Management issue, not an implementation concern. In my case, there was no requirement that said "use 16-bit long division." However, we had committed to a particular processor family (MC68HC05), and the calculation precision required 16-bit math. IIRC, there was a compiler available, but it cost more than the rest of the project and the code it produced wouldn't have fit into the variant of the processor that I was using anyway. The actual requirement would have looked more like "detect a 0.1% decrease in signal that persists for 10 seconds, then do X."

Animats 1y ago
Oh, yes, that era. I had to program a MC68HC11 in Forth because the C compiler was so expensive.
- markus_zhang 1y ago
  Man what a blast!

commandlinefan 1y ago

> the kind of job I'd enjoy I feel the same way, but I also can't help but imagine the boss jumping up and down and throwing chairs and screaming "how can you not be done yet? You're a programmer and this is a program and it's been three _hours_ already".

favorited 1y ago

I think the majority of programmers would enjoy it, but most would first need to pick an ISA (something older is probably going to be more approachable for beginners), learn enough about it to understand basic arithmetic instructions, learn enough about the dev tools to be able to assemble, link, and execute their code, etc. For most folks, that's going to be a couple days of prep work before they can get to the fun part of solving the puzzle.

1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago

"I guess I'm just not the "overwhelming majority of programmers"." The "overwhelming" majority of programmers may be underwhelming Some readers may be unimpressed by programmers who complain about and criticise assembly language, e.g., claiming it offers "no benefit" to others, especially when no one is forcing these programmers to use it