Hi Robert,
About "I wish to introduce myself..." of January 22 and "RFreedom
wars" of January 23:
MS> ...my very 1st post... ...i begin with a personnal presentation.
RW> I'm a beginning programmer who has 2 newer PIII computers and also
RW> two older (386 and 486) boxes.
I also have a P-133 Mhz but i left it at mother's place, so that it
would make her fall for it (and she did: she's going to buy a ful-blown
PC in a few weeks)... I never paid for my PCs but my very first one and
the P-133; i became a PC guy after i looked for an afordable substitute
for the only diskette-drive (500 $Can!) which was available for my newly
acquired Hewlett-Packard `HP-48s' calculator, around 1994 i believe. It
happenend that an `XT' clone (already quite old by then) was only 100 $;
so i bought an Epson `Equity-I' (or II?), and then i was given a 300 bps
dumb MoDem no longer after that... I discovered the BBSing hobby and it
grew. I learned how to connect two machines using `InterLink' so that i
could get use of the MoDem in my Epson and save the files to an other...
Etc., etc... I still have my Hewlett-Packard `HP-48s' calculator on the
desk today but the PC definitively took over and now i find myself doing
DOS batch or `{Commo}' macro file writting instead of `HP-48s' programs.
RW> I picked up the older machines essentially free... ...this is a
RW> very good way to study programming, because it allows me to do my
RW> entry-level studies using the books and softwares that were in place
RW> during the developmental stages of the languages.
If you're into programming, i suppose you'd have loved the `HP-48s'
user-programming language if it had been you who began with calculators.
My 1st Texas Instrument programmable calculator lead to a Timex-Sinclair
`ZX-81'/`TS-1000' (a Zilog `Z80' 8-Bit based "personal computer" which i
could use for some `Basic'-like or machine-code programming), then i was
back to calculators with my `HP' and then i became a PC addict later but
little else outweights the user-friendliness/customizability of an `HP'.
P-)
Luckily for me, specialized magazines were everywhere in the 80s...
;^)
RW> ...modern programming books all assumed prior knowledge...
I didn't experience exactly the same problem as you when it started
to become my main hobby because i had learned programming, at college...
My ability and taste for programming greatly diminished in the course of
the last decades; yet, i guess i might not claim to be a "virgin" user.
RW> By going back to the simpler OS's, CPU's, and earlier books, I am
RW> getting to see what programming was like before GUI interfaces...
What i miss the most about the 80s is related to ingenuity, bloated
SoftWare writting wasn't too popular, a number of fields were opened for
exploration. Again, the best example of ingenuity i can come up with is
the `HP-48' line (followed by the `HP-39', as i recall). A decade later
it's still offering top-notch user-language as it was ahead on its time.
Euh... And the most beautifull part of it: that's no "black-box'! 8-)
RW> ...reading discussions between some of the 'old timers'...
I looked for ressourcefull old timers on FidoNet for years and this
no longer seems to be a natural place for them to be so i end up looking
for them by relying on a pure InterNet technology. That's a bit strange
to me but if i must then i must!... %-o I wish i could still manage my
correspondance via the `Multi-Mail' (8088) Off-Line Mail reader, though!
RW> ...the Microsoft concept... ...doublespeak... ...hijacking...
I'm disapointed by what MS did to the Personal Computer in general.
Euh... May it be possible that we have a few things in common?!... ;-)
A sturdy/dependable OS was announced ions ago, did they release one
at last, after so many user-interface changes and lots of money-making?!
%-o
Salutations, :)
www.michel.samson.as
a/s Bicephale
... Sometimes, the cost of new features is too high, really! Is it not?
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
