this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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[Outdated, please look at pinned post] Casual Conversation

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I have wrinkles, I have grey hair, I have back problems, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, I can't remember anything, the world seems confusing and complicated to me now and I wish things were simpler (which is why I like Lemmy). I definitely don't get kids today or their music.

How am I so old?

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[–] RickRussell_CA@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Really look at that computer. The OP is in his fifties.

Apple II and its variants were used in schools well into the 90s. It was still selling pretty well even then. There's a great scene about it in the Fassbender Steve Jobs biopic.

[–] HubertManne@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ouch. that is sorta sad actually.

[–] RickRussell_CA@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

I don't know if you mean Apple IIs, or the scene in the movie.

If you want to learn how computers work, the Apple II was, and arguably still is, a great platform. 8-bit programming is still fairly comprehensible to the novice, and the MIPS assembly language that is used in academic textbooks draws a direct lineage from the Motorola 6502 instruction set.

I learned basic 6502 programming on my Commodore 64 in the 80s, and I was shocked when I took a computer engineering course in 2010 that used MIPS assembly for the examples. It wasn't just easy to understand, it was the same in virtually every respect. I had no problem at all following the code.