lakkal

15 ms·

121.
by lakkal 9y ago
My first exposure to a machine bigger than a 6502-based home computer was a Cyber at the University of Lowell (MA). Not sure the model number, ?600. In 1984 the freshman CS classes were in Pascal, on print terminals. I think my year was
122.
by lakkal 10y ago
Someone posted a link to multicans.org a few years ago and I spent a few very good hours binge-reading everything on the site. Stories of those days are great to read.
123.
by lakkal 10y ago
He's been going through the history of computer games (with emphasis on 'interactive fiction' and related types of games) for quite a while. Highly recommended if you're interested in gaming history. He's also wri
124.
by lakkal 10y ago
You might like Vernor Vinge's 'True Names', too. There was a PDF of the story on the web a while back; I'm not sure of its legality so I won't link to it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Nam
125.
by lakkal 10y ago
I think 'Real Genius' deserves a place on the list. Actual hacking is only a small part of the plot, but the rest of the movie fits the mindset well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Genius
126.
by lakkal 10y ago
The first calculator I owned was a Sharp EL-506C (1981?). I loved that thing, but it died and I replaced it with an EL-506G, which I used into the late 90s. And now I need to dig it up again for use in a class I'm taking (phone calcul
127.
by lakkal 10y ago
My resource for learning 6502 machine language was the Apple ][ Reference Manual: http://www.classiccmp.org/cini/pdf/Apple/Apple%20II%20Refere... which had appendices that covered the instruction set and opco
128.
by lakkal 10y ago
Visual Foxpro. The application originated in 1986 or so and the original language was dBase II, but moved to FoxBase in 1987, and FoxPro/Visual FoxPro over the next couple of decades. I do as much in Python as I can justify, but I sti
129.
by lakkal 10y ago
> VMS terminal users had smooth responsive I/O all the time. I recall that you could press Ctrl-T and it would instantly echo back some useful information about the running process, like CPU time and page faults. That was a nifty f
130.
by lakkal 10y ago
The ones around here that aren't part of a convenience store are part of a car repair place.
131.
by lakkal 10y ago
I am a Sanders donor, and I wasn't upset by it at all. (He was saying they should move on to more important topics).
132.
by lakkal 10y ago
I used to do something similar to Apple ][ computers. I'd go into the monitor (CALL -151) and type a short machine language program that looped infinitely, printing random characters and clicking the speaker. So the screen would fill
133.
by lakkal 10y ago
Just to add to the chorus, I turned 50 a few months ago, and still enjoy coding for a living.
134.
by lakkal 10y ago
<line-eater, are you there ?> And now we know that the "NSA line-eater" was maybe not so mythical, after all (though not responsible for actually eating lines).
135.
by lakkal 10y ago
Back in the very early 90s, I went through my company's codebase and replaced the mixed indentation with tabs. This was purely to save a space (small company, limited disk space). I probably preferred tabs at the time. Some time in
136.
by lakkal 10y ago
Beer and wine are available in NH from supermarkets.
137.
by lakkal 10y ago
http://thedailywtf.com/ would count as "Code I've been forced to work with".
138.
by lakkal 10y ago
I read his story a while back and was shocked that I used live nearby and may have (as a paperboy) delivered newspapers to his house. I left the area a few years before his experiments, though.
139.
by lakkal 10y ago
Very interesting. Thanks for that.
140.
by lakkal 11y ago
Yeah. As part of buying a house a few years ago, I prematurely drained a couple of small 401k accounts from previous employers to pay for some repairs. That was in Feb-March. Then a year later when I was doing my taxes, I had received th
141.
by lakkal 11y ago
I initially read one of his articles through a post here. I've since started supporting him through Patreon. Great stuff.
142.
by lakkal 11y ago
A mid-80s movie called "Maximum Overdrive" (based on a Steven King story) explores this...
143.
by lakkal 11y ago
Thanks.
144.
by lakkal 11y ago
w3schools is where I've gotten most of my DOM/HTML information as a non-web (for the most part) developer - simply because it does show up first in searches. I'd never heard of MDN until now, but it looks really good. I&#x2
145.
by lakkal 11y ago
Same in Death Valley in August. No plane/car noises, no animal noises, no wind noises. Bliss.
146.
by lakkal 11y ago
Try giving your talk at a smaller, local meeting (if possible) for practice.
147.
by lakkal 11y ago
I'm not familiar with most of the games in this list. My personal entry would be Gravitar ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitar ). Asteroids-style controls, limited fuel that you have to replenish by hovering a
148.
by lakkal 11y ago
The Gandalara books by Randall Garrett as well.
149.
by lakkal 11y ago
Same here. We moved when I was 6, 10, 12, and 16. A shy, introverted geek in the 70s and early 80s had it hard enough without that.
150.
by lakkal 11y ago
Hmm, not sure what game you'd mean, then. I was only able to find this man page for the game I was thinking of: http://www.mit.edu/afs.new/athena/contrib/games/man/man6/con...

More ›