What features of old computers helped you learn to be a better programmer?
- by David Cary
What features of old computers helped you learn to be a better programmer -- but don't seem to be available on new computers?
I imagine that, while educational, you are really glad some features are gone, such as
programs ran so slowly that I could almost see each pixel being plotted, so I got a visceral feel for the effect of various optimizations.
I imagine other features you may be a little nostalgic for, such as
I could turn on the computer, and write a short program that printed "Hello, World" on the printer, before ever "booting" a "disk".
(I'm hoping that this is constructive enough to avoid the fate of the "
What have we lost from computers 20 years ago
?" question).