I built a Z-80 kit in 1978. My first computer. It was a blast. I still have the thing. Before you get me wrong: I was the only kid in my high school with a com

I built a Z-80 kit in 1978. My first computer. It was a blast. I still have the thing. Before you get me wrong: I was the only kid in my high school with a computer of his own. That's kind of unbelievable. The next year, there were maybe six of us with computers. We had all kinds of opportunities because of our early exposure to this stuff (I arguably got my first real job because of that kit I built). [We also got into trouble with modems, and my grades cratered, and I independently discovered hacker hours. Ha.] I do get nostalgaic, but every time I go back and want to program one of these things (e.g., a KIM-1 replica I built last year, and an IMSAI replica) I run into the fact that the software environment on these things really stunk. That KIM-1 sits there; I wrote an assembler for the thing in a couple of days, but dealing with the limited resources when I don't absolutely have to takes the wind out of my sails. If I was on a desert island, I know I could deal. It would be no problem. But while it's nice to have that to fall back on, I'd much rather be hacking in C++ / Python / JavaScript with a real editor and a debugger that doesn't suck. Someday I'll dig that old digital group system out of the closet and get it running again. But chances are that I'll write an emulator for it first :-) [I did get to do a nice bit of embedded systems work a few years ago; a little power control system in 1920 bytes. That was a lark, and I got one of my cow-orkers roped into the project and we were basically insufferable, giggling kids for about two weeks, saving bytes and doing dirty hacks to make things fit in that space. Oh, those poor PMs...]