[Coco] Linville's ramblings on assembly vs machine code

[Dennis Bathory-Kitsz]

Hi all,

Interesting topic. I'm not usually a participant here (just process the
requests and check for spambots), but I can explain my own behavior with
regard to the CoCo.

I started machine language with the KIM-1. You didn't get an assembler with
only 1K of RAM (actually 2K with the piggyback). Everything was entered with
the hex keypad, which was itself an abstraction from the binary codes.

I brought this attitude over to the CoCo -- for example, optimizing my sound
player in binary. I could manipulate bits and have the code rewrite itself in
places in order to save machine cycles.

But soon, with the rise of high-level languages, this manipulation was now Bad
Programming. When the intuitive, low-level solutions gave way to structured,
high-level solutions, I stopped being interested in programming.

Dennis