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vparikhon The Lost Treasure of Sid Meier's Pirates

I spent my entire 8th grade summer vacation playing Sid Meier's Pirates. In many ways I considering it one the best games on the C64 (along with Ultima V, Uridium, Arkanoid, Ghost Busters and Ghost and Goblins). The thing that blew my mind was the game was actually written mostly in C64 BASIC with only the screen scrolling and sword fighting sprite routines in 6502 assembler which were called using SYS commands. In fact you could force a hard break and the game would dump you out to the C64 command prompt. If you typed list you could actually see the BASIC source code.

The first line of the code was actually:

0 REM PIRATES OF THE SPANISH MAIN!!

I spent the rest of the summer getting a dump of the game and really deep diving into how it worked internally. Those were the days!

vparikhon The Homework Machine

Shel Silverstein’s Homework Machine, a short poem from 1981, feels like it somehow snuck a peek at the future of AI

vparikhon Ask HN: Books to learn 6502 ASM and the Apple II

I recommend these two books for 6502 assembly:

https://archive.org/details/ataribooks-machine-language-for-...

and

https://archive.org/details/ataribooks-the-second-book-of-ma...

These two books will give you a good understanding of 6502 assembler - it is general but gives a good background and has a nice assembler with a full walk through of the code. I used these two books to learn 6502 on my Commodore 64 and they are highly recommended.

vparikhon Commodore 64 Ultimate

I would argue that we have that today in the form of the Apple MacMini (https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini) -- the Commodore 64 was priced at around $300 in 1984 or $950 in 2025 money. The basic model MacMini comes in at $600 today. For that you get a fully Unix system with a full development suite to build desktop/mobile/Unix apps out of the box. Every development platform is available (C/C++, Python, Swift, JavaScript, Java, Rust, etc.) on it. The expansion system is extremely simple also (USB C/Thunderbolt). Not to mention it is much smaller than a Commodore 64 and arguably more user friendly.

vparikhon I built a native Windows Todo app in pure C (278 KB, no frameworks)

Looks like you are linking to static libraries. You should link to DLL not to static libraries - this is will cut down on the application size dramatically.

vparikhon Ask HN: Where did you first learn to code?

Yes - you are completely right. I just looked up my receipt for my C64 and it was Dec. of 1984. Still have it all! So long ago, yet seems like yesterday :)

vparikhon Ask HN: Where did you first learn to code?

My uncle bought a TI-99/4A when Texas Instruments were blowing them out for $49 around the summer of 1987 or so. Played Parsec with the voice module and that was it - I was hooked. I needed to figure out how it did this. Started with the BASIC programming books that came with the machine.

Begged my parents until they bought me a Commodore 64 with a 1541 drive. I go a subscription to Compute's Gazette and typed in programs and figured out how they worked. Graduated to Richard Mansfield's Machine Learning for Beginners (https://archive.org/details/Compute_s_Machine_Language_for_B...) and I was on my way. And poured over the 'Antatomy of the Commodore 64' which had a dump of the annotated ROM firmware and poured over it to learn the machine inside and out (https://archive.org/details/The_Anatomy_of_the_Commodore_64/...)

And finally - dove into 'The Kracker Jax Revealed Books 1, 2, 3' (https://www.lyonlabs.org/commodore/onrequest/the_kracker_jax...) to learn all the protection schemes and how they were implemented to work around them. This taught me all of the tricks of disk access/memory compression, encryption and obfuscation. This really showed me a lot of how low level coding to control micro controllers/memory access/hardware level coding etc.

I had about four friends in school from 4th grade to high school graduation that had 64s and we would spend lunch and recess discussing what we learned/hacked/discovered the night before. Sure we were outcasts - but then we were so obsessed within our little world we could care less about the petty teenage drama around us.

Good times. I miss those days. I look at kids today and feel kind of sad that they lack the opportunity and/or the patience to do anything like that.

vparikhon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (April 2024)

Location: Wayne, New Jersey

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: C, C++, Python, JavaScript/NodeJS/React, Ruby, Java, Linux / UNIX, Windows SDK, AWS, Networking, JIRA, GitHub, GitLab, CI/CD, ETL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, MongoDB, embedded development

Resume: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PEBF2yDiZUPy_TT6WOcpG_FGz55...

Email: vijay.parikh@gmail.com

Experienced generalist software engineer, tech lead with 27+ years of software experience. Reliable-software enthusiast. Interested in everything. Idea generator. Start-up to large corporate experience, Ex-McKinsey

vparikhon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (March 2024)

Location: Wayne, New Jersey

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: C, C++, Python, JavaScript/NodeJS/React, Ruby, Java, Linux / UNIX, Windows SDK, AWS, Networking, JIRA, GitHub, GitLab, CI/CD, ETL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, MongoDB, embedded development

Resume: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PEBF2yDiZUPy_TT6WOcpG_FGz55...

Email: vijay.parikh@gmail.com

vparikhon XcomUtil

So many memories. This game was a masterpiece. I spent three weeks missing class (nearly failing my compiler construction class) and broke up with a girlfriend playing this game. Glad they don't make games like this anymore.

vparikhon Apple agrees to $25M settlement with US over hiring of immigrants

This is not going to change anything - Apple makes $109,229 per second(https://tipalti.com/profit-per-second/) - this so called penalty is 3.8 hours of Apple's profit. This is equivalent to a parking ticket for Apple.

vparikhon How the Mac didn’t bring programming to the people

Apple didn't bring programming to the masses - for the following reason:

- Just to expensive. The Apple Macintosh in January 1984 cost $2500 - thats $7000 dollars in todays money!

- Too complex to get started. The amount of knowledge to successfully write anything really useful in 1984 on that make was a huge barrier to entry - you had to learn ObjectPascal, the then new GUI concepts, somehow get your hands on CodeWarrior (another expensive software package) and learn the UI of CodeWarrior.

- Documentation was poor. The system shipped with nothing mentioning any of this or the hardware underpinnings.

The Mac was designed as an end user 'consumption' machine, not a development machine. Nothing wrong with that - as the market had shown it was highly proficient and successful in its intended role.

The company (in the US at least) that brought programming to the masses was Commodore.

- IT WAS CHEAP! With the release of the Commodore 64 it brought the a super sophisticated system at bargain basement prices. By early 1985 the C64's price was $149 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64) - thats $420 in todays money. A complete system with a 1541 disk drive & monitor cost a total $549 (https://www.mclib.info/Research/Local-History-Genealogy/Hist...) or $1,547 in todays money. A computer with 64K, 16 color graphics, a revolutionary 3 voice synthesizer capable of speech, and a massive software library and peripherals.

- It came with everything you need to to write code. The system booted into a BASIC interpreter REPL which served as its command line also. No additional software needed.

- The info that it shipped with was phenomenal. The manual shipped with the computer actually give you a nice tutorial on the basics of writing code, with examples of color graphics, sound generation, sprites and accessing peripherals (https://www.commodore.ca/manuals/c64_users_guide/c64-users_g...) You could write to Commodore and they would actually send you a schematic of the main board and expansion ports as well as a dump of the ROM so you could look at the actual code that the system used to do what it did.

It was an amazing time to be a young Commodore 64 programmer back then. Heck even the company's slogan was "Computing for the masses, not the classes". And with the Commodore 64 they lived that slogan.

The interesting thing is that todays Apple is even more friendly than Commodore was to the budding developer - with the MacMini line and the Unix underpinnings of the MacOS X, there isn't a better beginner developer system than Apple today.

Apple in many ways, learned its lessons and adapted. Commodore unfortunately - so Apple Mac of today is bringing programming to the masses.

All of my nieces and nephews - I bought them an iMac mini for last Christmas and showed them how to use the terminal and python - and they are on their way.

vparikhon Ask HN: Why did Visual Basic die?

Microsoft killed VB for one very simple reason:

They were terrified of Java and the JVM that went along with it, as it would make their cash cow - Windows possibly redundant. They basically switched everything to .Net and the CLR.

Also, you are looking at VB through rose tinted glasses. VB was a terrible system to build products on: - Poor language. BASIC is not, as implemented by VB, a production level language. I am sure folks will argue that point, but I will stand by it. - The component model was terrible - you had to drop in to C and use OLE/DCOM to create components for it. A VB dev couldn't create components directly in VB. - DLL HELL. Shipping VB code was a nightmare.

Delphi was an answer to all of this - but Microsoft killed that too by stealing Anders Hejlsberg, whow went on to create the .Net frameworks, implementing many of the Delphi innovations in a Microsoft ecosystem.

vparikhon Harry Browne’s Rules of Financial Safety (1999)

My simple rules about money and investing for the future:

- Max out 401K and place it in S&P 500 mutual fund - Take an additional 15% and but into an S&P 500 mutual fund - Don't look at it, just keep buying at regular intervals until you decide to retire.

The rest of your money - do what you wish (within reason) and stay out of debt.

Simple? Yes.

Contrary? Yes.

Proven historical returns that beat inflation? Yes - https://www.officialdata.org/us/stocks/s-p-500/1973?amount=1...

You can thank me when you retire :)

vparikhon Electric cars aren't affordable because America's workforce is underpaid

Yes - I meant $37,500

vparikhon Electric cars aren't affordable because America's workforce is underpaid

The full auto pilot option is $15,000 additional

vparikhon Electric cars aren't affordable because America's workforce is underpaid

Sorry meant to say $37,500

vparikhon Electric cars aren't affordable because America's workforce is underpaid

Sorry for the confusion everyone - I meant to say $37,500

vparikhon Electric cars aren't affordable because America's workforce is underpaid

Electric cars are still a luxury good. I can afford to buy a Tesla Model that equipped with AWD, and auto pilot (for me the marquee feature on the Tesla) comes in at 67,000 before any state & federal incentives.

To put it into perspective - A Toyota 2023 Corolla Hybrid SE Infrared full loaded with AWD will cost me 30K. A Toyota 2024 Camry XSE Hybrid costs $3750 all in with all of the upgrades.

Hard to justify 30K+ more for an electric vehicle - unless that is what you want an are willing to pay for it. But at this point - you can't justify the expenditure at all.

vparikhon Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?

https://insightfultroll.com/

Just random stuff I come across and my thoughts on it - more of entries that have interested me and so I have a log of it over time. More for me then others so - hope someone also gets something out of it :)

vparikhon Are you a late bloomer in work or love? Maybe you’re right on time

I have been think about this also. I am about to turn 50 in six months, and probably will not have the opportunity to have children (I am not dating 20-30 year olds).

I see more of the population in the US going the way of Asian cultures (I am first generation Indian) where you have multi generational house holds being more common. It is going to be a painful cultural shift, especially for the highly individualistic American culture - but that is the only way I see future generations surviving.

vparikhon The problems with live coding interviews

Ha! You are right - I still can't type :)

vparikhon The problems with live coding interviews

I have been in the software industry for 30 years as of this month. I have never had a gap of longer then 6 months and the shortest time with a company was 4 years 8 months and the longest time was 16 years. I have worked on the following technoclogies. Companies range from on of the Big 3 consulting firms to startups. Here are the technologies I have worked on

- C/C++ on Win16/Win32

- Assembly language development with Z80/8051/ARM on embedded microcontrollers

- Java (core java, Servlets, J2EE)

- Ruby on Rails

- NodeJS / Javascript

- Worked with AWS tech (the full stack)

- Relational DB (MsSQL, PostGres, MySql), NoSQL db (MonoDB)

- Coded for Linux/Unix, MacOS, Windows 16/32, PalmOS, iOS

I can provide reference for each of those skillsets form my past colleagues.

You know what - I probably couldn't pass half of the insane coding puzzles these interviewers throw out. Not because I can't solve them, I just don't remember enough of the syntax or library semantics of the top of my head.

At my experience can we just assume that I am a competent coder (maybe not the top 1%, but at least in the top %20) and talk about the job and how I can contribute ? I mean its almost insulting if you ask me to make a linked list/reverse a binary tree or other such nonsense looking over my shoulder me with a time limit.

vparikhon How Software Companies Die (1995)

That db product was Paradox I believe. Yes Microsoft had a lot to do with it. Microsoft in its embrace and extend strategy would keep adding / mucking around with the C/C++ compilers by introducing proprietary extensions that always kept Borland one step behind. Delphi was the gem in Borland's development tool stack. Made Microsoft's Visual Basic look like a toy. It was so far ahead of just about every desktop development platform of the time.

How did Microsoft handle that threat? They stole the lead developer of the Delphi compiler Anders Hejlsberg - who joined Microsoft and is the chief architect of .Net framework. In fact - if a lot of .Net concepts are direct implementations of Delphi and the VCL (properties, etc.)

Yep, Microsoft stole the one certified genius coder right from Borland. And the rest is history.

vparikhon Deeply, truly, sorry: How tech CEOs talk when they lay off workers

What is really infuriating is when the leaders of these companies "claim full responsibility." Really? I don't believe you until I see you cleaning out your desk with 1000s you made clean out theirs. After all, hiring 1000s of workers to help with a surge in demand that never materializes sounds to me like a gross management oversight at best or complete fiscal incompetence at worst.

vparikhon American Dream For Rent: Investors elbow out individual home buyers

The simple solution is if you purchase a property and are not living in it - i.e. its an investment property - you get taxed at a substantially higher rate. Both in property taxes and taxes on the profit made.

vparikhon Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

I am waiting to see the C-suite get some accountability - not holding my breath. if you over-hired by 7-12% over a an 18-24 month period that's a pretty significant management mistake - you clearly did not have a pulse on the business and its operations. I fail to see why these CEOs still have their jobs and worse, are continuing to get their performance bonuses.

vparikhon Ask HN: How to show a not “so perfect” MVP to potential customers?

If you want to se the ultimate MVP demo of a product look no further than the 2007 introduction of the Apple iPhone - https://youtu.be/MnrJzXM7a6o

It was not a finished product and the dev team was terrified that the system would crash. In fact you could argue that the first iPhone was an MVP released to the public.

These would help:

- Be upfront that this is an MVP. Do not try to sell it as a product that is a finished product

- Create a script that shows the core working functionality

- rehearse the script and make sure the feature list demonstrated and that you can run through the script

- In your case, is it possible that you can dictate (you need to control the variables)?

- Ask for feed back. Listen. Do not try to defend the product.

Hope this helps

vparikhon Pfizer plans to sell its Covid vaccine at a 10k% markup

> There are key differences between an emergency and traditional model that increase the costs of making and distributing the COVID-19 vaccine,” Pfizer told Quartz via email. These costs, the company says, include distributing through multiple channels and payers instead of one, as well as producing the doses in single vials, which can be up to three times more expensive and run into higher transportation costs.

Did Pfizer just admit that single payer systems are more economical than the privatized mess we have in the US????

vparikhon Ask HN: Do you remember Computer Chronicles?

Yea - I watched them as a kid every week. It was so inspiring. I'll never forget the day they compared the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST. That was they day I knew computers will change not only business but music industry, movies and entertainment in general.

That was the day I decided I was going to buy an Amiga and spent the next three years cooking up all kinds of schemes to make money - mowing lawns, paper routes, worked weekends at the movie theater and odd jobs around the neighborhood.

I took me three years to muscle together $1800 ($4300 in today's money) in in 1989 to buy my Amiga 2000HD. My parents thought I was crazy but let me do it. It led me to my love for programming and the career and lifestyle I lead today.

Amazing show - too bad we don't have shows like this today!