5 ms·

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 c

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.

avadodin 5mo ago
More than a few people would rather die in poverty than put in the effort today even if you offered to time-machine them back with their finished product.
yokoprime 5mo ago
To be fair, i think you needed a cutthroat businessman leading the company. Which i guess is more or less the same today
- justsomehnguy 5mo ago
  This too but early MS to their employs was closer to a hipster SV vibe coding in a coffee shop a decade ago.
- themafia 5mo ago
  > a cutthroat businessman leading the company I'm sure his family connections aided him significantly.
greenbit 5mo ago
And for such simple processors and systems no less! No descriptor tables to deal with, no memory management to configure. These days it takes a little processor inside the main processor, just to get things started. Those were golden times.
embedding-shape 5mo ago
Replace Assembly with TypeScript/Rust/Go/whatever and as long as the idea is good and useful, same thing applies today.
- risyachka 5mo ago
  Except the competition was essentially non existent and no one would copy your product with llm in a day
  - uluyol 5mo ago
    What makes you think there was no competition?
  - embedding-shape 5mo ago
    The "competition" never been just a different codebase, that's one of the smallest pieces you'd have to actually build if you want to build a product people actually want to buy and use. The magic is basically all around it, multiplied by the code, but you really must have every else down pretty tight before the codebase even start mattering. But once it does matter, it matters a lot, hence the difficult balancing.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
curiousObject 5mo ago
>writing a few thousand lines of assembly was what it took to launch a successful software company. Yes, but that assembly was not DOS, and it wasn’t easy. Microsoft purchased the DOS code, they didn’t write it. Of course, they did develop and modify DOS. But that was a clever (and lucky) business deal, not a technological accomplishment. The real beginning of Microsoft was earlier, with Allen, Gates and Davidoff writing the Altair BASIC interpreter. That was a serious achievement. They had never seen the computer they were writing that assembly code for. They did not even own any computers. It took them 8 weeks on a university computer they were not supposed to be using for that “Altair agreed to meet them to possibly buy a BASIC interpreter… Gates and Allen had neither a BASIC interpreter nor even an Altair system on which to develop and test one. However, Allen had written an Intel 8008 emulator that ran on a PDP-10 time-sharing computer. Allen adapted this emulator based on the Altair programmer guide, and they developed and tested the interpreter on Harvard's PDP-10. The finished interpreter, including its own I/O system and line editor, fit in only four kilobytes of memory, leaving plenty of room for the interpreted program. In preparation for the demo, they stored the finished interpreter on a punched tape that the Altair could read, and Paul Allen flew to Albuquerque to meet with Altair… While on final approach into the Albuquerque airport, Allen realized that they had forgotten to write a bootloader to read the tape into memory. Writing in 8080 machine language, Allen finished the program before the plane landed. Only when they loaded the program onto an Altair and saw a prompt asking for the system's memory size did Gates and Allen know that their interpreter worked on the Altair hardware.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_BASIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_BASIC
- BobbyTables2 5mo ago
  Imagine if the University had sued for their share of the IP and that was created using their resources… It’s funny because I thought Jobs/Wozinak got their initial funding from selling phreaking boxes. And more recently, Anthropic engaged in criminal copyright violations with only a slap on the wrist. Feels like a common theme of every “great” company having its origins from a “boost” resulting from criminal activity. (After all, that’s where the money is!) Just imagine the criminal penalties possible for pirating and selling one copy of a movie or making one long distance phone call with phreaking.
Andrex 5mo ago
My take-away is kind of the opposite. You literally have to be the right person in the right place at the right time.
Scroll_Swe 5mo ago
I find younger zoomers say this a lot and even to me in my 30s "oh you had it so easy!" because they think the knowledge today, we would have had back then. This is false. Loser today, you would have been a loser back then too.
utopiah 5mo ago
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 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.

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.

avadodin 5mo ago

More than a few people would rather die in poverty than put in the effort today even if you offered to time-machine them back with their finished product.

yokoprime 5mo ago

To be fair, i think you needed a cutthroat businessman leading the company. Which i guess is more or less the same today

justsomehnguy 5mo ago
This too but early MS to their employs was closer to a hipster SV vibe coding in a coffee shop a decade ago.
themafia 5mo ago
> a cutthroat businessman leading the company I'm sure his family connections aided him significantly.

greenbit 5mo ago

And for such simple processors and systems no less! No descriptor tables to deal with, no memory management to configure. These days it takes a little processor inside the main processor, just to get things started. Those were golden times.

embedding-shape 5mo ago

Replace Assembly with TypeScript/Rust/Go/whatever and as long as the idea is good and useful, same thing applies today.

risyachka 5mo ago
Except the competition was essentially non existent and no one would copy your product with llm in a day
- uluyol 5mo ago
  What makes you think there was no competition?
- embedding-shape 5mo ago
  The "competition" never been just a different codebase, that's one of the smallest pieces you'd have to actually build if you want to build a product people actually want to buy and use. The magic is basically all around it, multiplied by the code, but you really must have every else down pretty tight before the codebase even start mattering. But once it does matter, it matters a lot, hence the difficult balancing.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

curiousObject 5mo ago

>writing a few thousand lines of assembly was what it took to launch a successful software company. Yes, but that assembly was not DOS, and it wasn’t easy. Microsoft purchased the DOS code, they didn’t write it. Of course, they did develop and modify DOS. But that was a clever (and lucky) business deal, not a technological accomplishment. The real beginning of Microsoft was earlier, with Allen, Gates and Davidoff writing the Altair BASIC interpreter. That was a serious achievement. They had never seen the computer they were writing that assembly code for. They did not even own any computers. It took them 8 weeks on a university computer they were not supposed to be using for that “Altair agreed to meet them to possibly buy a BASIC interpreter… Gates and Allen had neither a BASIC interpreter nor even an Altair system on which to develop and test one. However, Allen had written an Intel 8008 emulator that ran on a PDP-10 time-sharing computer. Allen adapted this emulator based on the Altair programmer guide, and they developed and tested the interpreter on Harvard's PDP-10. The finished interpreter, including its own I/O system and line editor, fit in only four kilobytes of memory, leaving plenty of room for the interpreted program. In preparation for the demo, they stored the finished interpreter on a punched tape that the Altair could read, and Paul Allen flew to Albuquerque to meet with Altair… While on final approach into the Albuquerque airport, Allen realized that they had forgotten to write a bootloader to read the tape into memory. Writing in 8080 machine language, Allen finished the program before the plane landed. Only when they loaded the program onto an Altair and saw a prompt asking for the system's memory size did Gates and Allen know that their interpreter worked on the Altair hardware.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_BASIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_BASIC

BobbyTables2 5mo ago
Imagine if the University had sued for their share of the IP and that was created using their resources… It’s funny because I thought Jobs/Wozinak got their initial funding from selling phreaking boxes. And more recently, Anthropic engaged in criminal copyright violations with only a slap on the wrist. Feels like a common theme of every “great” company having its origins from a “boost” resulting from criminal activity. (After all, that’s where the money is!) Just imagine the criminal penalties possible for pirating and selling one copy of a movie or making one long distance phone call with phreaking.

Andrex 5mo ago

My take-away is kind of the opposite. You literally have to be the right person in the right place at the right time.

Scroll_Swe 5mo ago

I find younger zoomers say this a lot and even to me in my 30s "oh you had it so easy!" because they think the knowledge today, we would have had back then. This is false. Loser today, you would have been a loser back then too.

utopiah 5mo ago

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 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.