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This Tom Archer. He used to be an active CPian and we were good buddies. Been years since I last chatted with him though.
Jeremy Falcon
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This book started me on my journey as a Windows developer in 1992. I still have my first edition copy and hope to get it autographed by Charles some day.
/ravi
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raddevus wrote: Not everyone had a mouse
The first PC I bought (a CompuAdd 486 in 1992) came with DOS 5 and Windows 3.1 -- I assumed it included a mouse and then had to return to the store for one. 
modified 29-Aug-24 20:49pm.
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A mouse story from the very early 1990s: The program that was so large that you had to take the PC cover off to give it enough space:
In the days of DOS / Windows transition I was teaching at a small tech college. Another teacher was running a DOS database application (db II? My memory may fail on this), but her PC crashed fatally at application startup. She suspected a hardware problem, and took the PC to the service guys. They put it on their work desk, attached monitoring equipment at vital points on the mainboard. The db application ran flawlessly.
They put the cover back on, returned the PC to the teacher's desk - and it failed. They took it back to the service desk: No problems. This turned out to be consistent: At the service desk, no problem occurred. At the lecturer's desk it failed.
When the problem was diagnosed correctly, it turned out to be a function of the cover being off or on. When the cover was off, it worked fine; with the cover on, it failed. The cover was of the slide-backwards type. Lots of tower cabinets of the day was deliberately made that way to make sure you unplug the power cable to get access to the electronics. You would unplug everything at the rear panel, to the all the cables out of the way. Then you plug back in the things you need for the testing.
The DOS database application was not mouse based. At least it didn't require a mouse (anyway, the crash occurred at start up). So, at the service desk, noone thought of plugging in the mouse. When returned to the teacher's desk, the PC was installed properly, plugging in the mouse as well. When the PC booted, DOS loaded the mouse driver, maybe a couple hundred bytes. It searched for a mouse, found it and said 'Fine - mouse available!' So a couple hundred bytes less RAM was available for the application. Most DOS applications were poor at detecting/handling out-of-memory conditions; they just assumed where there is an address, there will be RAM. There wasn't.
At the service desk, there was no use for the mouse, so the service guys never thought of plugging it in after sliding off the cover. At boot time, the driver sought for a mouse, found none, and unloaded itself, releasing RAM used by the driver code. These couple hundred bytes extra was enough for the database application not to run into an out-of-memory condition. Until the real reason was detected, it appeared as if the application would work with the cover off, but not with the cover on.
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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He is a brilliant author
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
modified 30-Aug-24 4:24am.
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I still have a hard copy of this book on my shelf!
The fun thing is that most of the Win16 code in the book still works with very few modifications in Win32 on Windows 11.
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raddevus wrote: Because you've probably never heard of TrueType fonts
Wait, are TrueType fonts no longer a thing?
There are no solutions, only trade-offs. - Thomas Sowell
A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do.
- Calvin (Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes)
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Memories of learning programming with GWBASIC on DOS 4.0. It was already OLD when I started (it was the year 1998) but I could use a dismissed Compaq 486 laptop as my test bench and I already knew how to set up a machine with any DOS and Windows system (learnt way back in 1995, I was 7) so I wasn't new to the command line and I couldn't mess the home computer.
In 2002 my dad got me VisualStudio 6 and a very good VB6 book, which actually got me into "serious" programming. Boy did I suck. My only software wrote as a self-taught programmer did work but was everything a program shouldn't be. Fortune wanted the language we developed in high school from the 3rd year was exactly VB6 and the teacher was awesome in teaching the basics (from flow chart to pseudocode, troubleshooting technicques and formal verification). I also later learnt she also taught my first Computer Science college professor, who was awesome as well.
Sorry for rambling, it was just a trip down memory lane.
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
The shortest horror story: On Error Resume Next
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den2k88 wrote: Boy did I suck. My only software wrote as a self-taught programmer did work but was everything a program shouldn't be.
Some would argue this is exactly where VB leads beginners.
I personally probably haven't done enough VB to make that judgement call myself, but it is the comment that keeps coming back - that it teaches bad habits that are then hard to break out of.
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Oh no it wasn't anything inherent to VB, writing 1000 lines undocumented functions can be done (and I saw it multiple times by so-called professionals) in any language.
I worked a lot on VB6 in my first company and honestly I liked it. It lacked some features and had a few quirks but for its role it's really comfortable. It gives a lot less bad habits than its strongest current competitor, which in my opinion is Python.
As a quick GUI to call library functions it's just unbeatable, but take my opinion with a massive grain of salt - if some crazy mofo in MS will ever release a VB7 I'd jump on it in .3 nanoseconds.
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
The shortest horror story: On Error Resume Next
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Yup, had that book. Dipped my toes in the Windows development world.
386SX system, Microsoft C on diskettes. Had some Microsoft book on graphics for DOS (memory vague here).
First project was creating a "bird" (2 triangles) flying around the screen bouncing of the 4 edges.
Proud, I was. First comment was something like: "that looks like crap!". Truth often hurts.
Real project was on a fabricated, vehicle mounted "laptop" with mono screen. No flying birds.
>64
It’s weird being the same age as old people. Live every day like it is your last; one day, it will be.
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386SX -- 32-bit chip (internally) with 16-bit bus access. 
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Wordle 1,167 5/6
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 1,167 3/6*
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 1,167 4/6*
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Wordle 1,167 3/6*
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have. -Anon
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. -Frederick Nietzsche
modified 29-Aug-24 5:34am.
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⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I thought this was a slang term.
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
modified 29-Aug-24 4:01am.
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Wordle 1,167 4/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 1.167 4/6
⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟩🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
The shortest horror story: On Error Resume Next
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Wordle 1,167 6/6*
⬛⬛⬛🟩⬛
⬛⬛⬛🟩⬛
⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 1,167 1/6
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Completely lucky guess. I do not have a regular starting word, always just use a random word.
Within you lies the power for good - Use it!
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Wordle 1,167 3/6
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩⬛⬛🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I guess you could say, we all failed. 
Those who solved it will get that.
Jeremy Falcon
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Wordle 1,167 4/6
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟩⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
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Wordle 1,167 5/6
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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