Post #1904068

2026-05-02 21:52 UTC

@shrub900@mastodon.social I'm admittedly jealous b/c you had access to a #POSIX system (& a #FOSS one too!) from your earliest computer-using time in life. I “wasted”¹ my teenage years with a Commodore 64² — writing in BASIC & 6502 assembler. I was ≈ 18 years old before I got access to a “real” computer running #Unix SYSVR3.2.3 & ported #GNU #Emacs to it. ¹ I learned useful skills, but it yielded no useful artifacts. ² Yes, @cwebber@social.coop, I *was* keeping up with #Commodore, but it was *not* keeping up with me!!

Replies (2)

@restorante@social.linux.pizza 2026-05-03 04:54

@bkuhn@fedi.copyleft.org I am proud with the fact that I 'wasted' my teenage years with MS DOS, Windows 3.11, Netware, WordStar, Lotus123 and some other fantastic software. #DOS #Netware #WordStar #Lotus123 @shrub900@mastodon.social @cwebber@social.coop

Open ##1904065
@HolgerSchurig@social.tchncs.de 2026-05-05 05:07

@bkuhn@fedi.copyleft.org @shrub900@mastodon.social @cwebber@social.coop Why "wasted"? You learned a lot during these days I'd say. Programming is both analytical (divide a big problems into smaller ones) and synthetical (combined many small parts to some bigger thing). It doesn't matter if you do that with POSIX or one of the many non-POSIX-systems. I for example startet with PET 2001 (not mine, I tramped to warehouse to use it), then Apple II compatible, then MSDOS, then Windows 95. And at around that time I switched to Linux. Sure, what I learned about 6502 and Z80 on the Apple II, or about Turbo-Pascal, is of zero use today. But other skills I obtained (e.g. self-learning) are still applicable. However, my non-POSIX stuff yielded useful artifacts ... but even the "just for me" things were valuable!

Open ##2806594