[Coco] Color computer these days... (double reply)

[wdg3rd at comcast.net]

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: BookWorm <bookworm at cavenet.com>
> > Ok, I know what you mean. I guess it all boils down to having the time, 
> > patience, and desire to learn whatever it is that you want to learn. I 
> > started with BASIC so it was easy to master. I miss programming in 
> > BASIC. The last time I did some programming was on an old Macintosh 
> > computer using Chipmunk Basic. I don't have access to any of my CoCo's 
> > at the moment because they are in storage. I never got around to 
> > learning OS-9 but I always wanted to. Hopefully I will be getting my 
> > CoCo's out of storage soon. Have a nice day!
> > 
> > Alan
> 
> I like Basic too. I couldn't have become an OS-9 nut without RSB. Try it, you 
> might like it!
> 
> I guess I really shouldn't be taking my general disgust with PC's out on 
> innocent Linux users.

I'll mention that to the next innocent Linux user I meet.  Don't expect to.  Innocent=Ignorant.  Every Linux user I know knows quite well the crap that Microsoft inflicts on the ignorant.  Microsoft turned to the Dark Side when somebody decided that they should sell operating systems rather than just languages and applications.

Yeah, I run Linux most of the time (well, 24x7 on two machines in this house, so I guess that's all of the time).  At work, it's a Windows shop due to Quickbooks and the other-party inventory system.  Funny, everybody knows how much I hate Windows due to my constant bitching, but since I'm the only remotely computer-literate guy around (we sell parts to fix box trucks -- not the truck part, the box part), when something f_cks up, I'm the one that fixes it (I wish I could fix it like a veterinarian does a tomcat, not like a mechanic does a car).  The boss doesn't know I've installed Ubuntu (and Drupal and Scribus) on an abandoned machine to revamp the web site [I didn't build it, I just maintain it] and the catalog [currently in MS Publisher -- ditto] in my "spare" time.  (Mostly, I'm a clerk, a bit of a drop in salary [85%] from the days as a sysadmin, but there's less stress and my liver and heart thank me for it).

And, yes, I too started with BASIC.  In my case, on an HP-2000A timeshare system when I was fresh out of the USAF, switching over to TRS-80 (it wasn't called the Model One yet, since the Model Two didn't appear until July 1979).  I wrote a program on the Mod One (also works on the CoCo, and with an occasional adjustment to the RND() function at least through GWBASIC).  It got me my start in the computer biz, as instructor at an RSCC just opening, with a couple of moves that job lasted well over five years.  In the first half of the 80s, I was the only RSCC support person in southern California who gave any support at all to the Color Computer.  Oh yeah, that program I wrote is at http://home.comcast.net/~wdg3rd/Computer_Cantos.pdf  .  I submitted it to Kilobaud, in the meantime they started up 80-Micro, so that's where it was published, even though it was in no way TRS-80 specific -- five minutes it will run on a Commodore, an hour it will run on an ATARI 800 (Atari BASIC has
  HP-st
yle string functions, I'm a slow typist even on a good keyboard, and no Atari ever had a good keyboard).  Even converted it to BASIC09, but that disk was lost a couple of moves ago, and it took several hours -- BASIC09 is a far cry from BASIC.  ("That's moose-turd pie! -- but it's good though).
--
Ward Griffiths    wdg3rd at comcast.net

I thought about being diplomatic and polite.  Honest, I really did.  But while I was thinking about it, I accidentally bumped the button that puts my mouth on autopilot, because it said, "That's a load of crap, Captain, and you know it".    Jim Butcher, _Small Favor_