On 7/21/2014 12:54 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 1:39 PM, Jim Brain <brain@jbrain.com> wrote: >> Is this a problem? In the US, at least, people can't seem to give working >> 1520 units away. I pawned a few off a few years ago, but it was not without >> difficulty. > Let me start by saying, well done for all the work! I was always > curious about how the 1520 did its job but like everyone else before > you, had no way to inspect the code. I've glanced over what's come > out of this effort and enjoyed reading the source. You can say it: laughing at the source :-) I know what's gonna happen. I'm going to be at some show or interviewing for a job 5-10 years from now, and someone is going to Google my name and find this poor excuse for source, and then make some judgements. It's like the developer's version of college students' immature selfies or sexting pics online. :-) Bad code will now follow developers as long as they live :-) But, though 10 years ago I would have spent a week creating nice flowerboxes for the source and refactoring it into some awesome Gang of Four Awesomeness, I guess we're all getting to the age where we say: If all you're gonna do is judge me on some hack job to prove a point, I'm not interested in working with or for you. :-) Of course, all the true hackers on this list don't need to worry as they only write perfect code the first time, and it's always properly factored, etc. I need a "hacker apprentice" moniker or something :-). Heck, I can't even write proper 6502 ASM loops, as Gerritt showed... > Indeed! The motor gears break, the pens dry out, the paper is more > difficult to source than it was 30 years ago... I didn't know about the paper, but yes, those pens are scarce! Adding new commands or features in a way that does not affect existing SW, and requires a minimal investment in programming time (if any) is challenge in itself. Like double-size chars, or half size chars (isn't the unit 40 columns?) Something that could be selected from the few switches on the unit. Dunno, just spitballin'. But, I think adding new functionality to a 30 year old plotter has some appeal. Jim Message was sent through the cbm-hackers mailing listReceived on 2014-07-21 19:00:34
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