Discussion
Loading...

Post

  • About
  • Code of conduct
  • Privacy
  • Users
  • Instances
  • About Bonfire
Paolo Amoroso
@amoroso@oldbytes.space  ·  activity timestamp 2 months ago

I put together most of my retrocomputing bookshelf while learning Intel 8080 and CP/M programming, which reflects in the selection of titles. For more great photos of retrocomputing bookshelfs see:

https://retrocomputingforum.com/t/shelfies-bookshelves-with-a-retrocomputing-angle/190

#retrocomputing #shelfie #books #cpm #intel8080 #pascal

A closeup photo of a light wooden bookshelf containing 16 books spine out. The books cover the Oberon system, Turbo Pascal, algorithms, Intel 8080 Assembly, writing computer documentation, Smalltalk, software tools, recursion, and CP/M.
A closeup photo of a light wooden bookshelf containing 16 books spine out. The books cover the Oberon system, Turbo Pascal, algorithms, Intel 8080 Assembly, writing computer documentation, Smalltalk, software tools, recursion, and CP/M.
A closeup photo of a light wooden bookshelf containing 16 books spine out. The books cover the Oberon system, Turbo Pascal, algorithms, Intel 8080 Assembly, writing computer documentation, Smalltalk, software tools, recursion, and CP/M.
  • Copy link
  • Flag this post
  • Block
John Socks
@John@socks.masto.host replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 months ago
@amoroso haha. I still have the Oberon book. I might have let my 8080/8085 books go ..

If I were to offer my critique on Oberon, I think it tried a few things too many things at once.

That and people did not yet know you needed to be open source to gain a foothold.

  • Copy link
  • Flag this comment
  • Block
Paolo Amoroso
@amoroso@oldbytes.space replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 months ago
@John To Oberon's credit it achieved most of its goals of design simplicity.
  • Copy link
  • Flag this comment
  • Block
John Socks
@John@socks.masto.host replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 months ago
@amoroso yeah, I guess it's like Plan 9 and Inferno in that their strengths could never be fully explored, because C and the standard C library had become so dominant.

Rob Pike, "Systems Software Research is Dead" etc.

To this day really, with the Rust transition largely based on that model.

  • Copy link
  • Flag this comment
  • Block
Joe Pasqua
@bitsplusatoms@mastodon.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 months ago
@amoroso A small piece of trivia re: Oberon & Photoshop.

PS was organized such that all the code that did the heavy lifting (e.g. convolutions, filters, etc.) was in assembly. One of the lead PS engineers got deeply into Oberon when it was fairly new. He decided that he could rewrite the non-performance-critical code in Oberon while leaving the other code in assembly.

It wasn’t completed, but the experiment gave the team an approach for coping with Apple’s transition to PowerPC (longer story).

  • Copy link
  • Flag this comment
  • Block
Paolo Amoroso
@amoroso@oldbytes.space replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 months ago
@bitsplusatoms Oberon has an inviting and elegant feel.
  • Copy link
  • Flag this comment
  • Block
Weekend Editor
@weekend_editor@mathstodon.xyz replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 months ago
@amoroso

Kernighan & Plauger's _Software Tools_ made an impact on me, back in the day. Of course, I was a Fortran programmer then, so it was Ratfor. Nothing especially deep in it, but it made me realize how *obstructionist* a lot of operating systems were!

Also, the Turbo Pascal stuff reminded me of a joke article some of us wanted to submit to Dr Dobbs Journal: "Which is faster: Turbo Pascal, or a hard disk?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines

  • Copy link
  • Flag this comment
  • Block
Paolo Amoroso
@amoroso@oldbytes.space replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 months ago
@weekend_editor I like a lot the design insight of Software Tools in Pascal. But sometimes the code gets pretty terse and the very short variable names don't help.
  • Copy link
  • Flag this comment
  • Block
Vassil Nikolov
@vnikolov@ieji.de replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 months ago

Just to add a little color:
Software Tools in Pascal's translation into Russian (published in 1985).
The literal meaning of the title became
Instrumental Means of Programming in the Pascal Language.

@amoroso @weekend_editor

_Software Tools in Pascal_'s translation into Russian (published in 1985)
_Software Tools in Pascal_'s translation into Russian (published in 1985)
_Software Tools in Pascal_'s translation into Russian (published in 1985)
_Software Tools in Pascal_'s translation into Russian (published in 1985)
_Software Tools in Pascal_'s translation into Russian (published in 1985)
_Software Tools in Pascal_'s translation into Russian (published in 1985)
  • Copy link
  • Flag this comment
  • Block
Vassil Nikolov
@vnikolov@ieji.de replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 months ago
@amoroso wrote:

> I like a lot the design insight of Software Tools in Pascal.

So do I.

> But sometimes the code gets pretty terse and the very short variable names don't help.

It (and others) helped me learn to read and understand other people's programs.

@weekend_editor

  • Copy link
  • Flag this comment
  • Block
Paolo Amoroso
@amoroso@oldbytes.space replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 months ago
@vnikolov Well, the hard way is effective at learning quite a lot the same way being thrown in the water quickly teaches you how to swim. But what surprises me is to find such cryptic code in a pedagogical resource, not a production system.

@weekend_editor

  • Copy link
  • Flag this comment
  • Block
Vassil Nikolov
@vnikolov@ieji.de replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 months ago

Myself, I have always perceived it as a demonstration how to program as distinct from a textbook, but I would enter a discussion of what "pedagogical" means.

@amoroso @weekend_editor

  • Copy link
  • Flag this comment
  • Block
arclight
@arclight@oldbytes.space replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 months ago
@amoroso The two I would ask to borrow would be Project Oberon and How To Write A Computer Manual. Very curious about Oberon's design and how and why it's tied so closely to that specific processor.
  • Copy link
  • Flag this comment
  • Block
Paolo Amoroso
@amoroso@oldbytes.space replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 months ago

@arclight Both books are available online. Actually, nearly all are online as that is how I discovered most of them.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2589589W/Project_Oberon

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2003820W/How_to_write_a_computer_manual?edition=key%3A/books/OL2855918M

  • Copy link
  • Flag this comment
  • Block
Paolo Amoroso
@amoroso@oldbytes.space replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 months ago
@arclight Oberon was ported also to IBM PCs, so I'm not sure how tied the system was to that specific processor.
  • Copy link
  • Flag this comment
  • Block
Paolo Amoroso
@amoroso@oldbytes.space replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 months ago
@x2600 Here you go, enjoy:

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2003820W/How_to_write_a_computer_manual?edition=key%3A/books/OL2855918M

  • Copy link
  • Flag this comment
  • Block
Log in

bonfire.cafe

A space for Bonfire maintainers and contributors to communicate

bonfire.cafe: About · Code of conduct · Privacy · Users · Instances
Bonfire social · 1.0.0-rc.3.5 no JS en
Automatic federation enabled
  • Explore
  • About
  • Members
  • Code of Conduct
Home
Login