OMG. Can you imagine publishing Machine Code for Beginners today??

[gimulnautti@mastodon.green]

@paco Could you believe we had no problems expecting humans could write machine code, just for fun?

[toriver@mas.to]

@muddle @paco Sure the illustration only has Z80 instructions, but I will instead ask why not also the poor Motorola 6809? The Dragon series of home computers did after all sell a decent number though not close to the other brands that used the other two CPUs.

[verbgarden@ohai.social]

@shanecelis @paco The early 80s was truly a golden age for seriously engaging educational books.

[glasspusher@beige.party]

@paco I had a similar book for the zx81 in the early 1980s!

[roger_w_@fosstodon.org]

@paco Kudos to Usborne for making them available, we might run faster computers, but the fundamentals of electronics and making stuff haven't changed AT ALL. You can still buy a 555 timer chip, discrete components, everything. Even a Z80 micro although the original Z80 chips are no longer made.

How to Make Computer Model Controllers is just as relevant today owing to Raspberry Pi's making control computing affordable.

[biglinter@mastodon.social]

@paco do you remember the last time "beginners" ment actual "peoples beginning their journey in being educated into something"?

todays "beginner" means vibe coding for as little money as possible.

[bitchboss@marcella.masto.host]

@paco

Spent half my life on a 6502c but nobody wants to hear...

[wouter@pleroma.debian.social]

@paco
Just skimmed through it.

I would have loved a book like that growing up. As it is, some of the stuff covered in it I only learned about when going to college, years later.

I would have been of the right age to get this book! Alas, it doesn't seem to be available in Dutch though. Plus, I only got my first computer (a C-128 hand me down) in the mid 90s...

[rebootdeluxe@infosec.exchange]

@eestileib ...and helps learning and practicing debugging a lot!

In my youth I made the experience that almost every code in a magazine had errors. 🤬

@msh @paco

[umurgdk@mastodon.social]

@paco oh this cover design

[luc0x61@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@paco I learnt Z80 assembly code first from instructions seen in listings, and then in Rodnay Zaks "Programming the Z80" book.
By that time we were learning more about thelow level basics, developing was more complex sometimes.
The level of abstraction of today gives a lot of flexibility, but at the same time astrays from the waste of resources: memory space, computing power, energy waste, even for terribly simple applications.

[martinrust@infosec.exchange]

@msh @paco "every kid" is a bit exaggerated, isn't it? But I agree to your point.

[gevoel@mastodon.green]

@paco
Nice. The closest to the machine programming I ever did was in assembler. Only a very little bit. Around 1987

[walrus@toot.wales]

@paco

RPOM (previously called Magpi) had a series on it, less than a year ago... They'll turn it into a book soon...

[christoff@yem.bouncingaroundtheroom.online]

@paco @mainframed767 we need more of this

[saper@mastodon.social]

@paco need the same badly for #nvidia

[paco@infosec.exchange]

@bitchboss In THIS place? Everyone wants to hear about it!

[bertdriehuis@infosec.exchange]

@paco when I got my Commodore PET 2001, the previous owner threw in a handwritten disassembly of the entire BASIC ROM. I learned a lot from that, and it kindled my interest in languages.

Unfortunately the 6502 is one of those modern integrated devices, so no peeking under the hood there. But when the PDP8 at school came with full schematics, and the whole thing turned out to be constructed using TTL chips I already knew, that too was weeks of exploration, fun and learning.

[ianturton@mapstodon.space]

@glasspusher @paco I was just thinking that too, not sure if I had this book or another one like it for the zx81 and later the spectrum

[walrus@toot.wales]

@bitchboss @paco

I was living in a Z80 at the time...