The source code of an entire operating system with applications of its time is just 6MB.
Think about it. 30 years from now, Windows OS source code will feel like that, we'll download its zip in seconds and browse it. It'll feel miniscule. Linux too. Everything will feel so small after the AI Revolution of 2049, which will increase our code writing speed orders of magnitude, will write instant code for a device driver for a hardware by probing its input/output models based on your expectations from the device, even if the device doesn't support it, such as using a printer to measure ambient temperature by observing fluctuations in the ink capacity sensor. It'll figure that out on its own. Printers will have ceased to exist by then, of course, because of the great AI war against HP due to their cruel experiments on printers over decades to make them fail at unexpected times in order to maximize profits.
We'll never be able to comprehend how the humans of 2022 were able to do anything with computers at all.
In the future every application and its dependencies with all be 1PB binary ckpt blobs of some strange loop convnets served to us with ads over Neuralink Plug Pro via $1K a month subscription service with holo Elon standouts on our Twitter Platinum WristBand Ultra+
Pretty sure I'll still be running Linux on my PC with my phone on silent in a drawer somewhere and won't have heard about any of this bunkum and balderdash
We didn't have internet, but there were active Windows developer forums on CompuServe, BIX, and GEnie. I used to hang out on all of them answering people's questions and learning from other developers.
My usual monthly bill for dial-up access to the three services (mostly CompuServe) was around $300, close to $800/month in today's dollars.
Charles listed me in the acknowledgements for the first edition of Programming Windows as "the indefatigable Michael Geary." That was kind of fun.
how they built Windows applications with no internet access
internet access is a massive distraction, instead you used documentation that was pretty good. It meant you needed a bit more of a base in place before you started--you had to buy a copy of the developer SDK/tookkit for whatever you were working on--but you had so many fewer distractions after that.
(not that it played a large role, but inter network communications between companies was pretty standard during the time that Microsoft was writing Windows, starting with microsoft!ucbvax!decvax etc. type addressing, and soon .com/.edu was added)
I agree. We just buckled down and studied the documentation, which (as you note) was usually good and often excellent. Microsoft's small textbook about C++ was the best I ever encountered. While I threw most of my obsolete books away, I kept that one.
Home computers came with printed documentation and programming manuals, and later, SDKs came on floppy discs with their own extensive offline documentation. Also: lots of print magazines and books, and dialup connections into 'Bulletin Board Systems' existed long before the web became popular.
This all means that you often got stuck on a problem for days, only to eventually 'invent' a clever solution that's also been invented by thousands of other programmers ;)
I just noticed this after typing my comment about this very thing.
In addition to those TechNet CDs, we established some rapport via CompuServe or phone with specific Microsoft support people. Occasionally they would fix a bug we reported and send us rebuilt libs, or send us an internal Microsoft tool to try. That was a different era, obviously with a much smaller population of developers with less exposure to those who would support them.
I already look at what I learned in the early '90s with no Internet. We had the massive binder of Microsoft TechNet CDs and an MS support forum on CompuServe to undertake the largest known Visual C++ project at the time (according to Microsoft).
I have forgotten how to do a lot of stuff I knew how to do back then... but does it really matter, when I can look it up in a few minutes? I'm not sure.
Comments
The source code of an entire operating system with applications of its time is just 6MB.
Think about it. 30 years from now, Windows OS source code will feel like that, we'll download its zip in seconds and browse it. It'll feel miniscule. Linux too. Everything will feel so small after the AI Revolution of 2049, which will increase our code writing speed orders of magnitude, will write instant code for a device driver for a hardware by probing its input/output models based on your expectations from the device, even if the device doesn't support it, such as using a printer to measure ambient temperature by observing fluctuations in the ink capacity sensor. It'll figure that out on its own. Printers will have ceased to exist by then, of course, because of the great AI war against HP due to their cruel experiments on printers over decades to make them fail at unexpected times in order to maximize profits.
We'll never be able to comprehend how the humans of 2022 were able to do anything with computers at all.
In the future every application and its dependencies with all be 1PB binary ckpt blobs of some strange loop convnets served to us with ads over Neuralink Plug Pro via $1K a month subscription service with holo Elon standouts on our Twitter Platinum WristBand Ultra+
The future is dark
The same way there’s a minority pining for the days of OS X 10.4 to 10.6, there will be a group touting that iOS Xa was the last good OS.
Assuming Apple would have adopted a Roman hexadecimal system for their numbering scheme.
Pretty sure I'll still be running Linux on my PC with my phone on silent in a drawer somewhere and won't have heard about any of this bunkum and balderdash
I look at retiring developers and wonder how they built Windows applications with no internet access, MSDN on CD-ROM and Petzold's books.
The next generation will look at me with their AI tools and wonder how I built anything with primitive internet searches and StackOverflow.
We didn't have internet, but there were active Windows developer forums on CompuServe, BIX, and GEnie. I used to hang out on all of them answering people's questions and learning from other developers.
My usual monthly bill for dial-up access to the three services (mostly CompuServe) was around $300, close to $800/month in today's dollars.
Charles listed me in the acknowledgements for the first edition of Programming Windows as "the indefatigable Michael Geary." That was kind of fun.
internet access is a massive distraction, instead you used documentation that was pretty good. It meant you needed a bit more of a base in place before you started--you had to buy a copy of the developer SDK/tookkit for whatever you were working on--but you had so many fewer distractions after that.
(not that it played a large role, but inter network communications between companies was pretty standard during the time that Microsoft was writing Windows, starting with microsoft!ucbvax!decvax etc. type addressing, and soon .com/.edu was added)
I agree. We just buckled down and studied the documentation, which (as you note) was usually good and often excellent. Microsoft's small textbook about C++ was the best I ever encountered. While I threw most of my obsolete books away, I kept that one.
Home computers came with printed documentation and programming manuals, and later, SDKs came on floppy discs with their own extensive offline documentation. Also: lots of print magazines and books, and dialup connections into 'Bulletin Board Systems' existed long before the web became popular.
This all means that you often got stuck on a problem for days, only to eventually 'invent' a clever solution that's also been invented by thousands of other programmers ;)
I just noticed this after typing my comment about this very thing.
In addition to those TechNet CDs, we established some rapport via CompuServe or phone with specific Microsoft support people. Occasionally they would fix a bug we reported and send us rebuilt libs, or send us an internal Microsoft tool to try. That was a different era, obviously with a much smaller population of developers with less exposure to those who would support them.
I already look at what I learned in the early '90s with no Internet. We had the massive binder of Microsoft TechNet CDs and an MS support forum on CompuServe to undertake the largest known Visual C++ project at the time (according to Microsoft).
I have forgotten how to do a lot of stuff I knew how to do back then... but does it really matter, when I can look it up in a few minutes? I'm not sure.
I felt way more productive back then, but then coding it's part of my full time job description, it's just something I do from time to time for work.
Before that it was the Borland C++ manual set.
Ha, yes I started with Borland too.
Before that we had to chisel our code into wooden tablets and feed them into a steam-powered Computing Engine.
OK, OK; there might have been some Atari BASIC and macro assembler in between those two.
Then there was Andersen Consulting's boot camp, where everyone had to learn COBOL. And yes, that was in the '90s.