My uncle bought a TI-99/4A when Texas Instruments were blowing them out for $49 around the summer of 1987 or so. Played Parsec with the voice module and that was it - I was hooked. I needed to figure out how it did this. Started with the BASIC programming books that came with the machine.
Begged my parents until they bought me a Commodore 64 with a 1541 drive. I go a subscription to Compute's Gazette and typed in programs and figured out how they worked. Graduated to Richard Mansfield's Machine Learning for Beginners (https://archive.org/details/Compute_s_Machine_Language_for_B...) and I was on my way. And poured over the 'Antatomy of the Commodore 64' which had a dump of the annotated ROM firmware and poured over it to learn the machine inside and out (https://archive.org/details/The_Anatomy_of_the_Commodore_64/...)
And finally - dove into 'The Kracker Jax Revealed Books 1, 2, 3' (https://www.lyonlabs.org/commodore/onrequest/the_kracker_jax...) to learn all the protection schemes and how they were implemented to work around them. This taught me all of the tricks of disk access/memory compression, encryption and obfuscation. This really showed me a lot of how low level coding to control micro controllers/memory access/hardware level coding etc.
I had about four friends in school from 4th grade to high school graduation that had 64s and we would spend lunch and recess discussing what we learned/hacked/discovered the night before. Sure we were outcasts - but then we were so obsessed within our little world we could care less about the petty teenage drama around us.
Good times. I miss those days. I look at kids today and feel kind of sad that they lack the opportunity and/or the patience to do anything like that.
TI's price war with Commodore went into high gear in 1983, and TI pulled out of the market in '84. So your early experiences with the TI-99/4A were probably a bit earlier than you remember.
I had a similar story -- my grandfather grabbed one for $50 at, IIRC, JC Penney and gave it to me for my 4th birthday in 1983. Got my start with TI-BASIC as a young kid, then GW-BASIC on an XT clone a few years later. Then came Scheme, Pascal, C, C++, Java, Python, PHP, JavaScript...
Yes - you are completely right. I just looked up my receipt for my C64 and it was Dec. of 1984. Still have it all! So long ago, yet seems like yesterday :)
Experienced generalist software engineer, tech lead with 27+ years of software experience. Reliable-software enthusiast. Interested in everything. Idea generator. Start-up to large corporate experience, Ex-McKinsey
Experienced generalist software engineer, tech lead with 27+ years of software experience. Reliable-software enthusiast. Interested in everything. Idea generator. Start-up to large corporate experience, Ex-McKinsey
So many memories. This game was a masterpiece. I spent three weeks missing class (nearly failing my compiler construction class) and broke up with a girlfriend playing this game. Glad they don't make games like this anymore.
This is not going to change anything - Apple makes $109,229 per second(https://tipalti.com/profit-per-second/) - this so called penalty is 3.8 hours of Apple's profit. This is equivalent to a parking ticket for Apple.
Not that it changes much beyond the US GDP but you labeled the per minute figure per second.
Impact aside, which is should absolutely impact more, I'm almost doubtful the practice is even a net loss for them. ${years} of the hiring practice for an unknown number of individuals may have even been worth more than the fine.
Some other comments note it may have other impacts though, so maybe that's the real influence.
Apple didn't bring programming to the masses - for the following reason:
- Just to expensive. The Apple Macintosh in January 1984 cost $2500 - thats $7000 dollars in todays money!
- Too complex to get started. The amount of knowledge to successfully write anything really useful in 1984 on that make was a huge barrier to entry - you had to learn ObjectPascal, the then new GUI concepts, somehow get your hands on CodeWarrior (another expensive software package) and learn the UI of CodeWarrior.
- Documentation was poor. The system shipped with nothing mentioning any of this or the hardware underpinnings.
The Mac was designed as an end user 'consumption' machine, not a development machine. Nothing wrong with that - as the market had shown it was highly proficient and successful in its intended role.
The company (in the US at least) that brought programming to the masses was Commodore.
- IT WAS CHEAP! With the release of the Commodore 64 it brought the a super sophisticated system at bargain basement prices. By early 1985 the C64's price was $149 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64) - thats $420 in todays money. A complete system with a 1541 disk drive & monitor cost a total $549 (https://www.mclib.info/Research/Local-History-Genealogy/Hist...) or $1,547 in todays money. A computer with 64K, 16 color graphics, a revolutionary 3 voice synthesizer capable of speech, and a massive software library and peripherals.
- It came with everything you need to to write code. The system booted into a BASIC interpreter REPL which served as its command line also. No additional software needed.
- The info that it shipped with was phenomenal. The manual shipped with the computer actually give you a nice tutorial on the basics of writing code, with examples of color graphics, sound generation, sprites and accessing peripherals (https://www.commodore.ca/manuals/c64_users_guide/c64-users_g...) You could write to Commodore and they would actually send you a schematic of the main board and expansion ports as well as a dump of the ROM so you could look at the actual code that the system used to do what it did.
It was an amazing time to be a young Commodore 64 programmer back then. Heck even the company's slogan was "Computing for the masses, not the classes". And with the Commodore 64 they lived that slogan.
The interesting thing is that todays Apple is even more friendly than Commodore was to the budding developer - with the MacMini line and the Unix underpinnings of the MacOS X, there isn't a better beginner developer system than Apple today.
Apple in many ways, learned its lessons and adapted. Commodore unfortunately - so Apple Mac of today is bringing programming to the masses.
All of my nieces and nephews - I bought them an iMac mini for last Christmas and showed them how to use the terminal and python - and they are on their way.
They were terrified of Java and the JVM that went along with it, as it would make their cash cow - Windows possibly redundant. They basically switched everything to .Net and the CLR.
Also, you are looking at VB through rose tinted glasses. VB was a terrible system to build products on:
- Poor language. BASIC is not, as implemented by VB, a production level language. I am sure folks will argue that point, but I will stand by it.
- The component model was terrible - you had to drop in to C and use OLE/DCOM to create components for it. A VB dev couldn't create components directly in VB.
- DLL HELL. Shipping VB code was a nightmare.
Delphi was an answer to all of this - but Microsoft killed that too by stealing Anders Hejlsberg, whow went on to create the .Net frameworks, implementing many of the Delphi innovations in a Microsoft ecosystem.
My simple rules about money and investing for the future:
- Max out 401K and place it in S&P 500 mutual fund
- Take an additional 15% and but into an S&P 500 mutual fund
- Don't look at it, just keep buying at regular intervals until you decide to retire.
The rest of your money - do what you wish (within reason) and stay out of debt.
Electric cars are still a luxury good. I can afford to buy a Tesla Model that equipped with AWD, and auto pilot (for me the marquee feature on the Tesla) comes in at 67,000 before any state & federal incentives.
To put it into perspective - A Toyota 2023 Corolla Hybrid SE Infrared full loaded with AWD will cost me 30K. A Toyota 2024 Camry XSE Hybrid costs $3750 all in with all of the upgrades.
Hard to justify 30K+ more for an electric vehicle - unless that is what you want an are willing to pay for it. But at this point - you can't justify the expenditure at all.
I won't pay 30K for a vehicle in the first place. I drove a Nissan Rogue Select for 6 years before it was totaled on the highway in a rear end collision. For the past two, I've driven a Mitsubishi Outlander Sport.
I paid $32K total because I bought them both with 2 years on them.... and I received $13.5K back from insurance for the Rogue Select that I paid $14K for because of how wild the market was during the height of COVID.
Not sure exactly what buying a $60K vehicle is supposed to do for me. The cars had Airplay, cruise control, and AC. What else am I supposed to want?
Same exact market. I'm just not particular about whether the car is brand new or not, because I only need the following: Android auto, air conditioning, cruise control. Some of the other features like the rear camera are standard, and it's also got heated seats as a plus.
In 2020 I was involved in a rearend accident, but I didn't think much of it because my car was still drivable even though I couldn't use the back door. Insurance company said they were just gonna cut me a random check if I didn't bring the car in to the shop. Apparently there was frame damage at very rear driver side which totaled the vehicle.
So I was in a scramble to buy another car. I had multiple options, both new and used, but my rental was a Mitsubishi Outlander Sport. Loved that car. Anyway, when I set out that morning to buy a new car, I was looking for a NEW car. Talked to a dealership about a $33K special edition SUV with all the bells and whistles. Special color, moon roof, etc. But along the way, I saw a used car dealership and pulled in when I saw they had a bunch of SUVs in the lot. They had the exact same make, model, and color as the car I was driving. I don't do a lot of driving. The car had every single feature I wanted and low miles. So when they told me the price, it was a no-brainer. Picked it up the very next day.
Forget auto pilot, I have full self-driving, but only because I bought a secondhand Tesla in a private sale and it was already enabled.
Although FSD is technically impressive, it is not a must-have feature. I have played with it a few times, but to be honest, the car is so much fun to drive that I WANT to do it myself.
Just get a regular 3 or Y, both are great value with the tax rebates floating around now. The money saved on gas, oil changes and dealer servicing soon makes up the difference in cost.
(Actually it's interesting to see car prices in the US seem quite high when converted to AUD - e.g. the base Tesla price in the US is supposedly 48k, equivalent to 72.5K AUD, but they're advertised for 66.5K here. In years past I'm fairly sure that wasn't the case, though it's still true that on a PPP basis they're more expensive here.)
247 miles for the Bolt doesn't feel that shabby to me, you mentioned Camry so I guess you aren't into sub-compacts anyways? The Corolla (a sub-compact) has a range around 500 miles, so it is around .5.
"Full Self Driving" costs 15k, but is really not worth it for most of us.
It can also be rented for $200 a month if you want to see what it is like to be driven around by a really bad uber driver. Which of course, that is something we all want to try. But don't spend $15k on it. :)
Just random stuff I come across and my thoughts on it - more of entries that have interested me and so I have a log of it over time. More for me then others so - hope someone also gets something out of it :)
Begged my parents until they bought me a Commodore 64 with a 1541 drive. I go a subscription to Compute's Gazette and typed in programs and figured out how they worked. Graduated to Richard Mansfield's Machine Learning for Beginners (https://archive.org/details/Compute_s_Machine_Language_for_B...) and I was on my way. And poured over the 'Antatomy of the Commodore 64' which had a dump of the annotated ROM firmware and poured over it to learn the machine inside and out (https://archive.org/details/The_Anatomy_of_the_Commodore_64/...)
And finally - dove into 'The Kracker Jax Revealed Books 1, 2, 3' (https://www.lyonlabs.org/commodore/onrequest/the_kracker_jax...) to learn all the protection schemes and how they were implemented to work around them. This taught me all of the tricks of disk access/memory compression, encryption and obfuscation. This really showed me a lot of how low level coding to control micro controllers/memory access/hardware level coding etc.
I had about four friends in school from 4th grade to high school graduation that had 64s and we would spend lunch and recess discussing what we learned/hacked/discovered the night before. Sure we were outcasts - but then we were so obsessed within our little world we could care less about the petty teenage drama around us.
Good times. I miss those days. I look at kids today and feel kind of sad that they lack the opportunity and/or the patience to do anything like that.