> That's my very 1st post here and i suppose it won't hurt if i begin > with a personnal presentation. Well, i'm here because the `FidoNet_DOS- > InterNet' echo is in pretty bad shape and i fail to find people who have > something to share, other than me alone... I thought i might be luckier > in `SurvPC',
Howdy, I'm a beginning programmer who has 2 newer PIII computers and also two older (386 and 486) boxes. I picked up the older machines essentially free and outfitted them with circa 1980's and early 1990's tools, with one running a plain DOS environment and the 486 running DOS with Win 3.11. I found that this is a very good way to study programming, because it allows be to do my entry-level studies using the books and softwares that were in place during the developmental stages of the languages. (the stuff is all available on eBay for cheap) I found that modern programming books all assumed prior knowledge, even the ones claiming that they were for strict beginners. I don't think that even the authors were aware of what they were doing, but they were writing modern textbook that just explained 'how' at the basic levels, w/o explaining 'why', so that I felt like I was building the foundations of my programming skills on a 'black box', and a bunch of memorised stuff. By going back to the simpler OS's, CPU's, and earlier books, I am getting to see what programming was like before GUI interfaces, and protected mode programming. this adds a year or so to the front end of my studies, but I think it will be worth it in the long run. I have found out more stuff by accident on this list, just reading discussions between some of the 'old timers', than I have learned from other list, on purpose. -wittig http://www.robertwittig.com/ "Never hold a dustbuster and a cat at the same time." -Kyoyo, age 11 To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
