It requires a different way of coding: bug-free is a serious target, as far as it can be approached. It is a permanent concern while coding, with a lot of testing, and releases are hard releases, not agile output. No titanic effort there, just being serious and focused with quality.
Well, my 2-cent is that you can laugth of everything but not with everybody... So defying the norms with Easter Eggs sent to the wild can be an issue. You have to know your audience to properly chose your level of impertinence.
Small fix: the IBM System/23 Datamaster was based on Intel 8085, an improved version of the 8080 (binary compatible, more features, requiring less electronics around).
I love the story... But don't forget this story is the proper selection of events with textual glue and interpretation to make it feel like a novel.
Some statements belong more to the glue than to History, and they should remind us this is a real-life-based * novel *. I especially noted this one: "nobody at IBM had any real experience with [microcomputers]".
IBM senior management was certainly reluctant, but "nobody"... They even had microcomputer products that hit the market:
- IBM 5100 1975, first IBM personal computer
- IBM 5110 1978, 5100 updated for a larger market target
- IBM System/23, under parallel development with the IBM PC and released 1 month before in July 1981: many of the IBM PC features are shared with or taken from it (8-bit Intel processor family 8080 vs. 8088, very same expansion connector, reuse of the electronic expansion cards such as serial, exact same keyboard - just in a different box and with different function keycaps...)
If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, and you don't accept... You might loose two friends since both of them think they are right and will not understand you do not support them.
Probably because the so-called "low level" work and skills are underrated:
Have you ever wondered why your modern computer makes you wait for so many things? ... while you or other people were doing so many of the same things like 30 years ago on computers hundreds times slower.
Is it that your computer is getting old? ... No way! Hardware does not slow down when aging: software does. And it does because most developers have no idea of what happens under their feet in lower software and hardware layers - or worse, they just do not care.
I am so sure we would get so much better software if most developers were skilled in so-called "low level" stuff... Because "low level" skills are exactly the opposite: they are high level skills.
A cool DIY computer project could be a free re-creation of computers of the past. I believe it would make sense re-running the path of computer history, but pushing more and more open-source in it. You already can buy a NuXT, based on Sergey Kiselev's work to provide DIY resources to create a PC XT computer (including the BIOS).
I thought someone could enlarge the design to a more modern architecture when I found an old Compaq internal documentation showing the internal design of the first commercially available 80386 computer (Compaq Deskpro 386). I have just posted the reference on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38480275
Such new re-created computers would certainly be interesting to run legacy software, but it would also be very interesting to have modern and light-weigth software like KolibriOS (I know it requires a Pentium or more, but there is certainly little to change to downgrade to 80386).
I found a treasure on eBay this year and I shared it on Archive.org (link above, scroll down below the image) and Minuszerodegrees (Manuals > Third parties > Compaq).
It is a Compaq internal document of 1986, a full technical documentation of the first commercially available 80386 PC.
It is of interest for historical reasons (read abstract on Archive.org) and for people who would like to re-create a free x86-32 hardware respecting the original design... Something like a PC NuXT upgraded to 80386 or better.
"Between them IBM and MS traded performance for forced standardisation"
Maybe I misunderstand, but for me it is a strange statement:
* IBM fought standardization: they initially released a PC compatible with nothing, even in their own product lines, and fought hard against any kind of clones - those that transformed the IBM-PC in a de-facto standard. They even tried with the PS/2 line to break compatibility for all third-party hardware extensions (the MCA bus that could be used only by paying royalties to IBM).
* Microsoft cared neither for performance (obviously) nor for standardization. They just fought to own the market. Their products became de-facto standards because MS worked hard to kill competition and real standards. They even theorized and practiced the "embrace extend extinguish" process to kill competing products by breaking standards.
I understand your feeling: I have a vague uneasy feeling when I see DOSbox or other emulations running. It is a great achievement to allow legacy software to remain alive and executable... But still it seems fake. Nothing to do with the real software running on real antique hardware.
The author states: "the risk of dying from the screening exam was 1/660"
And demonstrates with: "This involves a radiation dose of about 30 milli-Sieverts. The usual rule of thumb is that one extra Sievert = 5% higher risk of dying from cancer, so a 30 mS dose increases death risk about one part in 660."
Sorry but there is a flaw here: calculation seems good but conclusion is completely wrong.
Calculation: increased risk ratio of cancer-related death for 30mS = 1.05^0.03S = 1.001465... So +0.15% = +0.0015 = around +1/660 (with less rounding +1/682)... fine!
Conclusion: this is not your risk of dying, but the increase of your risk of dying. If it was X%, the exam brings your risk at X% x 1.0015
X depends on the medicine quality in your country, your access to it, your health, your exposure to cancer-triggers (pollution, tobacco, food...), your DNA, your gender...
Let's state a depressing 1%, then the screening exam brings you to 1.0015%, or +0.0015% additional risk due to the screening exam = 0.000015 = rounded 1/67000. So your chance of dying from an exam-related cancer is absolutely not 1/660.
Frédérick's career started even earlier, with 8088 PC and CGA: He is also behind PopCorn, the very best CGA bricks-breaker. All done with his friend Christophe Lacaze in assembly with great graphics, transitions, smoothness, gameplay... A great fun with the mouse.
Worth a try if you still have a DOS machine (the original version has proper speed on XT 4.77 MHz; a later version - very similar - can run on any DOS machine at the original speed).
Your question seems provocative... but that's a very good question. I've always liked assembly programming and I got very puzzled when I discovered the processor metal have gone very far from the x86 instruction set I was writing. Il felt like the magic was gone.
Indeed there is no direct match anymore between instructions and gate combinations on the processor die. There is a microcode translating x86 instruction into whatever electronics are below. Change this microcode, and you could have your processor speak a different binary code (matched to a assembler language).