Programming using an old computer(s) [closed]

The old machines allowed one to program closer to the hardware, and know more completely what's going on. With something like a 6502 CPU, a programmer could almost visualize what every bit of hardware state was doing on every op code.

With modern machines and technologies, even assembly language is many levels of micro-abstraction above the transistor gates. Too many layers of even higher level abstraction, and you end up with programmers who have no idea how much memory, how many CPU cycles, cache misses, pipeline stalls, battery nanowatts, etc. each line of their code is eating. This just feeds the creation of more bloatware and carbon emissions (if you think stuff like that matters). Programmers who play with old school tech have at least a slight tendency to not be as ignorant.

There was a time in which computers were so expensive and so few that the only way for several programmers to use them was to submit their programs for one compile and run, and then wait for the batch of submissions to be processed so they could fetch a printout with the output saying that there was a "LINE 42 ERROR: EXPECTING ')'". Folklore says that programmers with that training were much more thorough about their designs and their coding.

I was there, and was also at the time when a compile of a homework assignment on a personal computer could take an hour, and I would never go back to the days prior to the seconds-short edit-compile-debug cycles of Turbo Pascal.

Modern tools make programmers orders of magnitude more productive than they could be using the old methods. The "but it run when I tried it on my machine" syndrome that many novice programmers exhibit is a problem of attitude and education, and not one of tooling or technology in general.

Always go for the best tools you can get hold off/afford. It's what the professional practitioners of all the crafts, arts, engineerings, and sciences do.

Because it ignited my passion for programming.

What you see above is the "Vtech LEADER 2000" educational laptop with a single line black&white lcd display designed for kids. It has ~30 games installed, a touch typing learning program and a BASIC interpreter. I hope it will last until I get own kids some day..

Though, the keys have become a little bit too small for my fingers ;-)

Does that count as old?

In my other answer I didn't mention that I still keep the first personal computer that arrived at home/work: an HP 85 that a small screen, a tape drive, and thermal printer integrated (several years before the first Mac).

Its BASIC could be expanded to do the most amazing things with 2"x1" eproms that were inserted in a sort of drawer, any hardware (printers, hard disks, plotters) could be hooked through the daisy-chaining HP-IB bus. We wrote the first versions of software that is still used today on that little machine.

I don't know why I still keep the little (and very heavy) bugger. I haven't turned it on in a very long while, and there's no use for it today, the days of Python on a cell-phone. It might be to remind me of how high-quality (and how much more expensive) personal computers were before the Epson QX-10 and CP-M, the IBM-PC and MS-DOS :-).

I sometimes get out my old Amstrad pc from 1984. Sure, I could emulate the BASIC on my PC but that's not as much fun as getting the old computer out. Plus, my new PC cannot read audiotape programs :)