OCTAGRAM

Programming Commander Keen was dramatic. Keen Dreams source code is now open

I would look for MiSTer FPGA PC-XT core

Hacking into some platform makes very tied to it. I still recall how to program smooth scrolling in EGA/VGA. It becomes an explored world, and is ARM good for being tied to? ARM has an ongoing problem of being proprietary, and RISC-V is to come as a solution. If ARM is neither past nor future, then we should not getting tied to it.

Maybe get ITX-Llama and let parent and kid be tied to all the same platform? Have something common to discuss, something common to play. And MiniMig or Apollo A600 may do the trick. CheckMate Retro IPS display. It is past, but great past. Alive in our souls.

As a desktop candidate role I would say that there is a pain of bones broken in the past. I have System Shock (1) for DOS and for MacOS. DOS version was playable in NTVDM for long, especially in 32-bit XP with VDMSound. MacOS version was, to be precise, Mac OS Classic version for Motorola CPU. And Mac OS switched CPU from Motorola to PowerPC. They had emulator bundled, but only for one switch. Soon after Motorola-to-PowerPC switch they did PowerPC-to-Intel switch. And Intel Mac OS did run PowerPC applications, but did not run Motorola applications. So I have managed to unpack StuffIt archives with System Shock for Mac OS, but never managed to run it. Actually, Intel transition was not momentarily. There was Intel x86 Mac OS and Intel x86-64 Mac OS. 10.4 Tiger could possibly run something 64-bit, but not GUI apparently. Later Mac OS introduced nice Objective-C 2.0 features as 64-bit only. Mac OS 10.6 was the last one to have Rosetta for PowerPC, and I hear complaints that it was a loss. Some games were left in PowerPC era, and "Mavericks forever" movement (10.8, the last skeuomorphic Mac OS) reports they regret not having access to PowerPC. And as you may now, modern Mac OS went to ARM. Each time there is a leap to another architecture, bones break. Legacy do not work anymore, and companies want us to move on, but we don't want to. Our broken bones hurt.

There is an ongoing problem with ARM being proprietary architecture. Our trained bones predict future pain. Again! When will be the end to this sufferring? If we are to adopt open RISC-V 64 in the end, let's just do it now and not get used to anything ARM.

Computer-is-in-keyboard is a good idea if keyboard is right. But this all-white dull stuff is no match for IBM Model M style of contrast keyboards full of sense. SUBOR SB97 is what I think of as good computer-is-in-keyboard looks. They just cloned IBM Model M. Just clone IBM Model M and you are fine

Apollo A6000

SUBOR SB97 looks fantastic because it clones IBM Model M. Most keys are white, but Esc is grey, and and F5-F8 are grey. And arrows are grey. And some other keys are grey. Keyboard is contrast, alive, full of sense. All such conventions that were taken for granted, and this RPi 500 is dull all white.

ITX-Llama is good for young kids to learn computer, programming, etc. My first mathematical application was MathCAD 6 on Windows 3.1 with Win32s add-on, and that worked fine for me, and can work fine for young kids. My most used programming language in DOS was Turbo Pascal, and it worked fine for me and can work fine for young kids.

I see nothing good in limited game option. It was inspiring to play game and then want to also program some game. Or to crack that game. DOS games are easier to penetrate with ArtMoney and IDA than modern garbage with closed source servers. So it makes sense which games are playable on device, not playability of games as is.

Parents may spend some time with kids in network DOS games, discuss how it was to experience it first. And that Raspberry Pi, what is it good for? It does not have DOS legacy, it does not have Amiga legacy. It is disconnected from all great stuff of the past, and does not have own charm. Its games are either emulators or some open source games ported to ARM. An architecture that is new on desktops and who knows how long will it be. There is Windows ARM, but it does not run on Raspberry Pi. There is Mac OS ARM, but also won't run. Proprietary ARM is pushed to be replaced by RISC-V, so should we tie ourselves to ARM if it is doomed?

I mostly see Raspberry Pi in hardware. MT-32Pi for Roland sound emulation in ITX-Llama. PiStorm for fast CPU emulation in MiniMig. Not primary CPU for desktop. I don't know what to discuss with kids in Rasperry Pi. No past and no future.

Will they introduce Ada and announce that it will become mandatory

Eiffel has unsolicited tracing garbage collection. For TGC-free programming there is Ada

In Russia we had Subor, LIKO and Magistr. Magistr also did 16-bit SEGA with keyboard, and this is unique. SEGA had no 16-bit original hardware with keyboards. SEGA only had 8-bit keyboard and then 32-bit Dreamcast.

Seed7 uses UTF-32. Ada standard library has got UTF-32 for I/O data and file names. Ada is such a language where almost nothing disappears in standard library, so 8-bit and UTF-16 I/O and/or file names are all still there.

> The first code point is zero, in Unicode jargon U+0000. In human-readable text it has no meaning, but it will interfere with the operation of certain programming languages.

This part encourages more active usage of U+0000, so that programmers of certain programming languages get a message that they are not welcome

The most advanced usage of XSLT I've seen was in YBlog2, YML and YSLT, an alternative syntax for XML and XSLT. And IIUC they did not rely on browser-side although that may be still possible.