Or, wow.
I feel both lucky and sad. When I started with computers
that's pretty much all there were. Hobbyists. Hackers.
Having more than 48k of RAM was extravagant. Emphasis of
the day was on "good tight code." Assembly language was
still a respectable language. And that's where I got my
start: 8080 Assembly on a "modern" Heathkit with CP/M.
And I felt I was coming late into the game.
I've tried a number of languages. There's really no
"perfect" language. Some are better suited to certain
applications (kind of like the OS thing).
Learn assembly language. Everything reduces to that.
You can reach everything in the hardware with it.
Get a copy of A86 by Eric Isaacson (www.eji.com/a86/)
and visit Steve Gibson's pages (www.grc.com). The
pages mentioned by the other guys (Ralf Brown, etc.)
will also help.
Then, pick ONE high-level language. Anything.
C/C++ or Java. Pascal. Delphi. Visual Basic.
Something that you're comfortable learning and
in which you can be productive. Learn it well.
My own suggestion would be C/C++ but that's
because it's what I learned.
Finally, pick one major database environment;
something that can be tied to the high-level
language you chose. Also, in these times, it's
good to find one that works well in a web server
environment.
If you can master assembly, a high-level language,
and a database environment, you can pretty much
do anything. If you try to do this in a college
setting, it will take too long. Best if you can
find someone who can provide some guidance as you
learn from books.
This message wouldn't be complete without at least
one controversial suggestion, so here goes:
Learn FORTH. Even if you never use it for major
projects, learn what it can teach you about program
design and organization. Starting places would include
www.forth.org, www.taygeta.com/forth.html, www.forth.com,
and dec.bournemouth.ac.uk/forth/ (among many others).
I can appreciate the mountain you have to climb.
I also understand that you have the disadvantage of
having to learn a lot of this as "history," but the
climb is worth the effort, and there are plenty of
"historians" around who want to see you make it.
Best Regards,
Garry Hamilton
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
----------------------------
Or Botton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote
> I've decided to send this here, because this is
> probebly one of the last place I have access to
> that got real computer hackers in it.
>
> As most you probebly know, for the last years i've
> been trying to be ...
> ... A hacker, in the original meaning of the sense.
> ... a person who like and can squeese the the most
> power out of his machine. A person of the type who,
> ... can just sit down and try to make one by himself.
> The kind of a person who knows what is going on in
> his machine, and can do almost whatever he can think
> of with it.
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