Personal Question

[kataklinger]

Yes, we all remember good old C64.

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?LOADING ERROR

or

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?SINTAX ERROR

Here ar some good links about C64:
www.lemon64.com
www.c64.com

[Pype.Clicker]

LOAD "$",8
READY.

and http://remix.kwed.org/ shouldn't be forgotten, either...

[kataklinger]

And there are OSes for C64, like JOS, CLIPS, WINGS,... (16-bits for 65816 SuperCPU), GEOS (and some
OSes based on it but I can't remember names).

Take a look:

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http://sweetcherrie.com/jos/

.

[srg]

Hi

I'm 20 (will be 21 this year) and I've been into computers since I was 9 years old when I got an Amiga 1200 for my birthday. Oh well, guess I'm still one of the "kids", although the C64 wasn't taken off the market untill about 1992 or 1993.

I got my first PC for my birthday in 1997, a K6 166MHz with 16MB RAM and Windows 95. Since then I have been upgrading my machines and building up older ones, I now have a real love for old PCs from 386 upwards.

I started programming in Delphi 2 from a magazine coverdisk in May 1999 (so I've been programming for 5 years), BTW I still think that Borland's pascal (rather than standard pascal) is top notch! Anyway, I started programming in x86 Asm in 2001 and started programming in C late in 2002. I also did (a.k.a dragged into) a couple of College and Uni units in Visual Basic.

I caught the bug of OS development in 2001 when reading through Randal Hyde's The art of assembly and originally was going to write it purely in asm, but later I've found C to, most of the time be much quicker to write (not all the time though, especially as I've become assustomed to the excellent NASM). I've only started actually writing my OS project in 2002.

Currently I'm about to start learning C++ and xwWidgets so I can replace Delphi with them for application prorgamming. I'm also brushing up on my electronics (those Js and complex numbers really hurt my brain ??? ) as I would like to build my own Z80 (or possibly 6502) based microcomputer. Plus I'm in the process of possibly being &^%$ over by my crap Uni >:( (only time will tell).

srg

[Solar]

I can go back a bit further though. How many of you have used a Commodore Pet?

My first line of code was written on a ZX81, 1 kByte RAM...

[Tim]

srg: To be honest, you don't really need to know about complex numbers to build your own microcomputer, unless you want to build one with a really clever power supply. You're better of learning about FPGAs, and digital electronics in general, for that.

[srg]

srg: To be honest, you don't really need to know about complex numbers to build your own microcomputer, unless you want to build one with a really clever power supply. You're better of learning about FPGAs, and digital electronics in general, for that.

Surly this sort of thing is needed in anything with capacitors and inductors in the circuit, or aren't they that important on a computer.

BTW are there any good references on this subject that would help clarify this?

srg

[kataklinger]

Surly this sort of thing is needed in anything with capacitors and inductors in the circuit, or aren't they that important on a computer.

BTW are there any good references on this subject that would help clarify this?

j=sqrt(-1)
What is hard about complex numbers?
If you can code an os, why can't you undrestand complez numbers??? It is better to learn something about AND, NAND, FLIP-FLOP-s (D,T, JK,...), registers, counters, logical networks, RAM...

[Solar]

What is hard about complex numbers?

Nothing is really hard - as long as you have someone competent and patient enough to explain it to you properly.

If you can code an os, why can't you undrestand complez numbers???

While I agree that Computer Science has a lot to do with maths (at least the way it's taught at the university), it's a bit far-fetched to assume that everyone who's a wizard with Assembler, scheduling algorithms and memory management also is a maths wizard.

Take me. I'm a pro, earning my living by churning out hard-core C++ code. I juggle mathematical formulas every day. I'm writing a standard C library of my own. Yet still I have no idea what complex numbers really are or what they are good for. I've heard about this "imaginary part", and I've read enough example code to know how to use <complex> in C++, but I still haven't got a clue on why people would use them.

I have no idea what a "lambda calculus" is about, either.

Does that make me a bad software engineer? I don't think so. And the very day complex numbers or that lambda thingy becomes important for my work, I'll find someone to explain them to me.

Never confuse wisdom with intelligence.

[Pype.Clicker]

you may see complex numbers as coordinates in a plane. One axis is the 'real' part, the other axis the 'imaginary' part. Adding, Substracting are trivial, multiplying a bit more tricky and division starts odd stuff ...

And now if you try figure out what a function that takes a complex number and produces another complex number may look like, you're entering a whole new world that you can hardly mentally represent (since the simplest function requires 4 dimensions to be plotted )

They tought all this, i was there ... but i never used that knowledge so far ...

[BI lazy]

I've had to learn them in the commercial academy too: weird stuff this is. We've used it to calculate Possibilities and ways to iterate into endlessness - mandelbrot and sorta, which use complex numbers. building integrals 's been essential there - and I very much *disliked* it for i's been nearby non representable by model/picture in the brain. Needed to learn formulas by heart not by understanding *grmpfl*

It's way easier for the mind to grasp Possibility-calculation using factorials, even if it is faar away from being abstractable to pictures and models.

[Solar]

This leads me to a rather OT question:

Does anyone have a good source from which I could brush up my mathematical background? Website, book, whatever explains higher math in a way that's understandable for people like beyond_infinity and myself who like to know what they are doing in addition to how to do it (model / picture)?

I ceased understanding this stuff when the teacher started to go into third and fourth derivation of curve scetching without bothering to explain the purpose. I know integrals, complex numbers, complete induction etc. only by name, and even while I have yet to come across the situation where I actually need them, I always strive to improve myself, and this kind of math is close to what I do for a living so I'm quite motivated.

[Curufir]

K. A. Stroud, Engineering Mathematics.

Very nice book that leads you through most of the basics with theory, examples, worked examples etc. This one has been a life saver for engineering students (All disciplines) for many, many years.

E. Keyszig, Advanced Engineering Mathematics.

This one isn't for the faint at heart (Sometimes he assumes a LOT of prior knowledge), but does cover practically everything you'll ever need to know about calculus (Unless you're doing a Mathematics doctorate) as well as a variety of other subjects. However chances are that you can go your entire programming life and never need anything that it contains ;D.

[Candy]

...explains higher math in a way that's understandable for people like beyond_infinity and myself who like to know what they are doing in addition to how to do it (model / picture)?

...while I have yet to come across the situation where I actually need them...

Imaginary numbers such as IQ's

Was surfing over userfriendly and tumbled over this one: http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20030501

[kataklinger]

Take me. I'm a pro, earning my living by churning out hard-core C++ code. I juggle mathematical formulas every day. I'm writing a standard C library of my own. Yet still I have no idea what complex numbers really are or what they are good for. I've heard about this "imaginary part", and I've read enough example code to know how to use <complex> in C++, but I still haven't got a clue on why people would use them.

I have no idea what a "lambda calculus" is about, either.

Does that make me a bad software engineer? I don't think so. And the very day complex numbers or that lambda thingy becomes important for my work, I'll find someone to explain them to me.

I didn't say that you need complex numbrs if you want to write an OS. I said that you will understand complex number (and they aren't so complex as the name says) if you can undrestand really complex thing like os dev.

It DOESN'T make you a bad software engineer. But if you want to do something with electric current (Do you know who is Nikola Tesla?) you must learn complex numbers and integrals. And I HATE them, but I did undrestand them.