Posts by thebluewizard@hackers.town
 (DIR) Post #ARcZqbPr9qmvHv0Bbk by thebluewizard@hackers.town
       2023-01-14T03:30:05Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @fsf Simple suggestion: you can modify the toot-bot to set the language to FR instead of EN. Thanks!
       
 (DIR) Post #ATbtzMbpHZBKrh8BQu by thebluewizard@hackers.town
       2023-03-12T20:58:33Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @neauoire @maddiefuzz @mos_8502 You may be surprised...! I am a late 50 years, so I had seen a lot. My first encounter with a computer was the DEC teleprinter in a high school, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DECwriter for more details. That was where I first learned BASIC-PLUS 2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC-PLUS), which was a seriously souped up version of BASIC programming language. I wrote several programs in it, and the best program of mine was an editor which I carefully crafted to be rather frugal in printing out while editing and was also interactive. I still have the source code of that program. Someday I would post that code. The operating system was RSTS/E time-sharing running on PDP 11/70 using the BASIC-PLUS 2 environment. I also printed many programs that I found on the system. I may eventually posted some of them. I learned a lot from those stuff. As you can see, I am a something of an archivist.My next computer was an Apple ][+, again in that same school, where I first learned about graphics programming, however primitive it was. I soon discovered that it had a machine monitor. I taught myself 6502 programming, and I eventually printed the disassembly of the entire content of the ROM, both the Applesoft BASIC and F800 ROM content (I don't think there is a formal name for that...maybe a "Woz ROM"?). I spent a lot of time reverse-engineering the listing. I still have that printout. I learned even more. Unfortunately my reverse-engineering was not quite completed. I remember stopping at trying to understand the garbage collection code, plus I somewhat skimped on some of the floating-point code logic. Then I got a book titled "Beneath Apple DOS" (I just checked on Amazon...it is selling used that cost $80.96! Yikes! I guess the book is probably a collector's item!). Again I learned a lot from it. It has a complete annotation of every entry in the AppleDOS, but no source code, which I find a big frustration. I also learned Apple Pascal and LOGO on it.I later went to a college, took various compsci classes. There I used IBM S/370, VAX/VMS, IBM PC (and very briefly Mac and Sun Solaris), Meanwhile, I bought a C=64. Here I learned a lot from it, and I subscribed Compute! Gazette. I learned a lot, played some games. I also bought a 64 FORTH cartridge, and discovered wonderful world of Forth programming. This changed my worldview of programming.There are a lot of going on throughout the years, like the rise of Windows (95 then NT). I got a job and the work environment is 100% Windows  shop.Then at home I got involved with Linux...When I got on Twitter I stumbled into retro computing tweets, and I learn a lot. I am continually surprised with what C=64 can do. I had not even thought possible that C=64 can various things.I have a big nostalgia for 8-bit computers, and I am still learning about them. Believe me, you don't need to have a nostalgia to appreciate the 8-bit computing era. I hope it helps! And ENJOY!!!(Nota bene: Parts of my writing are from my personal mini-bio about life with computers. That writing is not yet posted, but it will be!)
       
 (DIR) Post #AU5ut4fEmg8JOya9AG by thebluewizard@hackers.town
       2023-03-29T02:56:41Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @fsf No captioning 😞​
       
 (DIR) Post #AUj2EXg1vUeTZuQPrs by thebluewizard@hackers.town
       2023-04-16T21:52:20Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       I just learned about a fork of Rust language:https://crablang.org/😀​
       
 (DIR) Post #AWNupMVfVfEN0Y8uUy by thebluewizard@hackers.town
       2023-06-05T05:34:12Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @vertigo @yojimbo @xerz I smell a possible article write up which would explain various approaches with Linux's shared library (.so format), Amiga's library format, Windows DLL, ... I can't think of any other example of dynamic linkage formats.The phrase statically-linked and dynamic linking are quite different: The static link means the linker makes a copy of code from a library and put it in an executable). The dynamic linking means the library (with its code) get loaded into the memory and the loader makes a "link from the executable into the loaded library. Exactly how it is achieved varies from platform to platform.The Wikipedia article on the static linking explains that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_libraryI know Amiga library format pretty well. As Vertigo said, it is just a v-table, and each entry (with one or two exceptions I know of) contains a JMP $xxxxxxxx instruction. Yes, There are two jumps per invocation.To take an example, a DOS Library might have a list:typedef void (*)() Libcall;struct DOSLibrary {  // Standard llibrary routines that manage this library  Libcall  Open;  Libcall Close;  Libcall Read;  // etc.} DOSLibrary = {  // Lib routines addresses   &DOS_Open, // actually JMP DOS_Open   &DOS_Close, // actually JMP DOS_Close   // etc,};int DOS_Open(blah, blah) {...}void DOS_Close(blah) {...}// etc.That's it.Of course an operating system must give an address of DOSLibrary in order for an application invoke the routines.Something like this:(struct DOSLibrary *) DOSLibrary = OpenLibrary("dos.library");// ...DOSLibrary ->Open(....);That is roughly how that works on Amiga. (I know I made some white lies regarding AmigaOS itself in order to explain more clearly how that works).It is even more clear when seen at assembly level.Maybe I should write an article and let Vertigo add some more, hmm?I am not very knowledgeable about .so and DLL (those are similar but different in some ways, that much I know. (I did read some articles about .so and DLL in the past).One thing I must point out: CORBA, COM and similar are different than what I talked about.I apologize to Vertigo for jumping into the discussion with lengthy explaining, and I hope others understand it better.An article is definitely called for in my opinion.Anyway, bedtime!
       
 (DIR) Post #AXGw2rVdzdr0GyYCyO by thebluewizard@hackers.town
       2023-07-01T22:46:03Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @twylo Oooh...A long time I used to write BASIC-PLUS programs on such system. It got some interesting architectures, like two numbered accounts (I still remembered logging on [208,0], etc., and games programs found in [1,6], etc.). My first exposure to an actual computer. I still have many printouts of BASIC-PLUS programs...a few are from me, but a lot from others!