Interview with 80s Computer Nerd

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  • Опубліковано 22 гру 2024
  • 1980s Computer Nerd. linkgraph.net/...
    Interview with 80s Computer Nerd with Eugene J. Fitzgerald Johnson - aired on © The Computing Weekly, December 1986.
    Programmer humor
    Programming jokes
    Programming memes
    Programming History
    Computers 1980s
    80s gaming
    Computer History
    Commodore 64
    c64
    1541 Disk Drive
    Pacman
    Super Mario
    Donkey kong
    cartridge
    speedOS
    fastloader
    Programming 80s
    Pascal
    Basic
    Assembly

КОМЕНТАРІ • 224

  • @Ikxi
    @Ikxi 10 годин тому +258

    this is really high definition for the 80s

    • @kasinski123
      @kasinski123 10 годин тому +22

      betamax was amazing

    • @andrewkraevskii
      @andrewkraevskii 9 годин тому +5

      Probably AI upscaling)

    • @izeot9740
      @izeot9740 9 годин тому +18

      originally filmed on film reel

    • @CreeperED1TS
      @CreeperED1TS 8 годин тому +6

      Nah, they did that annoying thing where they cut off the top and bottom of the 3:4 ratio and then upscaled it with ai.

    • @LuxAeterna93
      @LuxAeterna93 7 годин тому

      it's upscaled

  • @thedungeondelver
    @thedungeondelver 10 годин тому +278

    He became the Emacs guy.

  • @AsherZhu
    @AsherZhu 9 годин тому +151

    "You're saying its slow? I have time" 80s hit so hard

  • @edbrito-swdev
    @edbrito-swdev 9 годин тому +66

    "What happens in the 80s, stays in the 80s. Except for Perl."

    • @sdstorm
      @sdstorm 8 годин тому

      And Go, which time-traveled to the future.

    • @rednafi
      @rednafi 4 години тому

      @@sdstorm Go is glorious.

    • @Dr.W.Krueger
      @Dr.W.Krueger 3 години тому +1

      mental ray, which we started developing in 1984 was with the industry until 2017, when we had reached the limits of its scalability. its DNA lives on in our in-house production pipeline. :)

    • @clray123
      @clray123 Годину тому

      Our enterprise management software still runs on Perl. Adding new features every month.

  • @caliburnleaf9323
    @caliburnleaf9323 8 годин тому +75

    "I use single letter variable names, it's called efficiency. I don't need comments. I have a degree in creative memory management."
    A few seconds later: "What is this variable for?"
    This will never not be funny.

    • @fnunez
      @fnunez 4 години тому +7

      Because basic was interpreted and the CPUs were not that powerful, having single character names and no comments in your code was actually a legit optimization technique. Of course, everyone knew that the perf critical part of your game had to be written in assembler...

    • @GregKrsak
      @GregKrsak Годину тому

      @@fnunez This is soo true. All of it.

  • @deerkaiser9983
    @deerkaiser9983 7 годин тому +48

    "My 12 years old neighbor writes a better Basic interpreter than that"
    Brilliant reference to Simon's Basic :)

    • @NatiiixLP
      @NatiiixLP 20 хвилин тому

      It's Simons', not Simon's, smh.

  • @foobarbazbaa5598
    @foobarbazbaa5598 9 годин тому +59

    "I hear from the pitch if it loads successfully" that takes me back

    • @wisteela
      @wisteela 6 годин тому +5

      I can still align a cassette deck by ear to load computer tapes.

  • @shadowwarrier4416
    @shadowwarrier4416 10 годин тому +93

    "Printers that don't jam" fking golden

    • @GSBarlev
      @GSBarlev 8 годин тому +5

      We'll have faster than light travel and alien-human hybrids before we have non-jamming printers.

    • @benjaminshinar9509
      @benjaminshinar9509 4 години тому

      I can't get my printer to jam. it flat out refuses to print if I don't go out and buy fresh ink cartridges for all colors.

  • @benitoe.4878
    @benitoe.4878 10 годин тому +58

    That room is soo spot on. Also, who remembers to de-Gauss the CRT, too?

    • @cthzierp5830
      @cthzierp5830 7 годин тому +4

      Give the side of the monitor a good whack to stop the image rolling

    • @PropaneWP
      @PropaneWP 7 годин тому +2

      My TV doesn't have a de-Gauss button. Sounds like a luxury-problem

    • @henrikholst7490
      @henrikholst7490 7 годин тому +3

      Spent more time defragging my Disk TBH. There was also a disk compression tool... Forgot what it was called. But I actually used it. I had 40mb hard drive.... No chance of buying a bigger one. Glad I just had a computer. 😅

    • @McDuffington
      @McDuffington 6 годин тому

      ​@@henrikholst7490 Likely Stacker, DoubleSpace or DriveSpace.

    • @McDuffington
      @McDuffington 6 годин тому

      With auto degauss it would do it every time you turned the monitor on. Not much happened if you did it in succession but if doing it after having the monitored powered off for a day would give a very satisfying *BWUANG*

  • @da39vinci
    @da39vinci 10 годин тому +75

    Maybe he is an immortal programmer. I mean these setups and the knowledge of all the languages.

  • @c0mm3nt-m8e
    @c0mm3nt-m8e 9 годин тому +114

    No StackOverflow, no ChatGPT... "when men were men and wrote their own device drivers" - Linus Torvalds

    • @robertjenkins6132
      @robertjenkins6132 6 годин тому +2

      It would suck without being able to google those Q&A websites. You would have to read through large books to learn how to do something. Plus, my memory is bad so I can't remember basic things like "How to Do (X) in (Y)-Language" unless I've done it 10,000 times. So being able to do a quick web search to jog the memory is really useful.

    • @ballsaxx
      @ballsaxx 4 години тому

      They had bios back then doing all the driving work ..

    • @sam_music555
      @sam_music555 4 години тому +1

      @@robertjenkins6132 Well remember you probably only used few languages. AND speaking about writing device drivers, choice boils down to even fewer options.
      Basically you were writing C code all the time, and considering C itself has a "really short" keyword set you would have learned it pretty fast.
      The problem is that you wouldn't program that much of stuff unless you were really good in programming

    • @Dr.W.Krueger
      @Dr.W.Krueger 3 години тому

      I appreciate his work every day, but the man itself has become a loony.

  • @regmtait100
    @regmtait100 9 годин тому +20

    80s C64 fan here. All totally spot on.

    • @wisteela
      @wisteela 6 годин тому

      The Atari were better though. 😉

    • @BL-ob9fn
      @BL-ob9fn 5 годин тому +2

      The C64 had 16 colors though, nobody used it with a monochrome monitor like in the video. But the rest is pretty accurate.

    • @Dr.W.Krueger
      @Dr.W.Krueger 3 години тому

      I appreciate the C64 nowadays; what it meant/did for humble users and developers without deep pockets. Back then: different story. Wouldn't have touched it with the proverbial 10 ft pole. We were young, very spoiled developers. 😂

  • @HorrorAlgorithm0x1337
    @HorrorAlgorithm0x1337 7 годин тому +11

    Missing: Getting cut off from the BBS because your sister picked up the phone in her room. Also missing: the 9 volt battery in the 300 baud Volksmodem dying.

  • @etsequentia6765
    @etsequentia6765 9 годин тому +10

    The *Fort Apocalypse* title screen punched me in the face and rocket launched me to much better times in another era, in another universe. A lost universe.

  • @michaelwojcikiewicz1478
    @michaelwojcikiewicz1478 5 годин тому +4

    This hits so close to home. When I was 10 or 11 I'd spend hours or sometimes days typing out data statements from computer magazines, listening to a-ha from an old record player someone in my building threw out

  • @c1ph3rpunk
    @c1ph3rpunk 9 годин тому +35

    “I never turn off my GeOS, it’ll probably never start again”
    Sooooooo true.

  • @burnttoast111
    @burnttoast111 7 годин тому +10

    What a potpourri of pain and nostalgia... It's like being reminded of a bunch of paper cuts you had forgotten about.

  • @wherami
    @wherami 10 годин тому +23

    Ah typing from a magazine. I remember that

  • @Oregun
    @Oregun 9 годин тому +5

    Thanks for documenting my life! :) Too funny, thanks!

  • @exiquio
    @exiquio 9 годин тому +7

    Hands down the funniest geek videos around... I'm a 90s nerd, but I had a hand-me-down Apple IIc. I would "program" games in basic by copying the code from books in the library.

  • @MrJacksspleen
    @MrJacksspleen 9 годин тому +30

    "The disk drive costs more than my computer."

    • @everaldopeixoto7634
      @everaldopeixoto7634 9 годин тому +2

      That was true!

    • @johnsmith1953x
      @johnsmith1953x 8 годин тому +5

      @@everaldopeixoto7634 The 1541 was $179 while the C64 was $129 in 1985.

    • @cthzierp5830
      @cthzierp5830 8 годин тому +4

      To be fair you got a second 6502 😀

    • @melbar
      @melbar 2 години тому +1

      Infocom text adventures make use of that second cpu

  • @curiousobserver6077
    @curiousobserver6077 10 годин тому +9

    "Computer enthusiast" - his poker face is full of enthusiasm.

  • @Crazynin1
    @Crazynin1 9 годин тому +21

    I got a degree in creative memory Management ahahahaha

  • @Larioteo
    @Larioteo 10 годин тому +20

    As a kid in the mid 90s I had such similar PC, it was a magic box which fascinated me every day.

  • @billlodhia5640
    @billlodhia5640 9 годин тому +16

    "Let me debug it..." Proceeds to shake it violently. Perfection

  • @LonersGuide
    @LonersGuide 8 годин тому +5

    Hooking up that C64 to a monochrome monitor though. You should have just used a cheap color TV to display all 16 possible colors in all their glory.

    • @fnunez
      @fnunez 4 години тому +1

      Yeah what the hell was that. I'm hoping he didn't accidentally press the button at the back of the monitor that puts it in green only mode.

  • @videos-de-fisica
    @videos-de-fisica 7 годин тому +15

    the shocked "you have a C compiler?" got me

  • @EduardoEscarez
    @EduardoEscarez 7 годин тому +9

    "Printers that don't jam"
    "Big Brother is too busy figuring out DOS commands"
    So f-ing perfect 😂

  • @igorgiuseppe1862
    @igorgiuseppe1862 9 годин тому +14

    "then i end up fixing their VCR" lol nothing changed.
    the backup function broke my backup
    LOL

    • @GSBarlev
      @GSBarlev 8 годин тому +1

      Still to this day: did a backup with Timeshift that failed halfway through and corrupted my whole backups. Pretty sure it was a "skill issue" but definitely pushed me into making backups of my backups.

    • @darukutsu
      @darukutsu 8 годин тому +1

      thank god for zfs

    • @GSBarlev
      @GSBarlev 7 годин тому

      @@darukutsu Wait, I thought it was ButterFS that was the magic sauce.

    • @darukutsu
      @darukutsu 7 годин тому +1

      @@GSBarlev depends what you want... btrfs for anything that needs raid5,6 is not recommended, and using zfs on regular system can put you out for newest updates for quite some time... I just use zfs cause hard to remember so many commands for different systems

  • @Psychx_
    @Psychx_ 6 годин тому +8

    "I hear from the pitch when it loads successfully" ahahaha that brings back memories.

  • @shahidullahmuffakir668
    @shahidullahmuffakir668 8 годин тому +15

    "I just need a 2nd computer"🤣

  • @wisteela
    @wisteela 6 годин тому +2

    I'd love to now how that Zenith monitor is working with a C64. I had an amber one, and that had a PC 9 pin mono connection. Maybe he's right about the monitor not being compatible. Also, where would the sound come from?
    Also, a SNES cartridge? He's a time traveller!

  • @tomjay63
    @tomjay63 6 годин тому +1

    Nailed it with the burgundy silk shirt and huge aviator glasses. A leather bomber jacket would complete the look.

  • @ToumalRakesh
    @ToumalRakesh 4 години тому +1

    That was so spot on, it physically hurt. Or maybe my back is acting up. Who's to say.

  • @AdamMPick
    @AdamMPick 2 години тому

    The eyes opening up when talking about Tron. Perfection.
    PS. I still have several C64s and Amigas in my attic. Some of them even run.

  • @JasonKingKong
    @JasonKingKong 8 годин тому +2

    That floppy drive had the same CPU as the computer. In theory you actually could play a game on the computer while the disk drive printed a spreadsheet on a daisy chained printer, though it would be tricky to setup.

  • @chainq68k
    @chainq68k 3 години тому +1

    As a die-hard Commodore fan, I feel deeply insulted by the fact that I fully agree with the statements in this video.

  • @destinyobamwonyi8865
    @destinyobamwonyi8865 3 години тому +1

    "There it goes my 1000 lines of Basic Program", I remember when I use to do document typing with excel on desktop in Nigeria where we have very unstable electricity and no UPS, it was a nightmare.

  • @amedvedev
    @amedvedev 5 годин тому +3

    I wrote my first (basic) program in 1988 (and first calculator program in 86), but yes all was exactly the same, becouse it was USSR and we was definitely late in personal computers. So disk drive is luxury and much pricier than zx, basic pokes, memory map, VDP registers and assembler codes - all remembered ✅Games from tape and then floppy’s. Not commodore 64 but ZX, than MSX2 128. Congrats- almost all nailed perfect 👌
    And i have C experience on msx - Aztec C. It was hard, yep.

    • @schwartzseymour357
      @schwartzseymour357 4 години тому +1

      Did you have the Yunost TV?

    • @amedvedev
      @amedvedev 3 години тому +2

      @ i have unused small bw tv named VL 100 (almost portable, 6 inch i think) so i MODIFIED it to have Video input and its was my first monitor for handmade RK86 computer (soviet one based on i8080 analog with 32kb ram and text only) and then first monitor for ZX spectrum clone. Later i obtained color tv middle size, similar to Yunost but other name. And got it connected to ZX tru RGB mod. Monitors was rare so we all do some TV modifications to connect ZX or other 8bit home computers

  • @winsomehax
    @winsomehax 9 годин тому +4

    Luxury. I remember ZX81 ram packs.

  • @CrackerJack84
    @CrackerJack84 9 годин тому +5

    Not saving before turning off the computer 🫨🫨

  • @shivagrid
    @shivagrid 13 хвилин тому

    So crazy that I got all the stuff from the 90s video and almost nothing from this one. Generations are real. Wild!

  • @pyajudeme9245
    @pyajudeme9245 3 години тому +1

    I had Quake 1 on 24 floppies (packed with WinRAR - the only app whose interface never changed since 1996)! It took about 3 hours to install. One day, disk 23 was corrupted, it was a real nightmare to create a new working version. Hahaha

  • @axelkoster
    @axelkoster 9 годин тому +2

    Good old times. That really brings back memories. 😊

  • @jama211
    @jama211 9 годин тому +1

    This is amazing, I feel like you could actually show it to a computer nerd from the 80's and they'd get all these jokes hehe

  •  9 годин тому +4

    The German edition of Count Zero called Biochips came out in '88. He definitely should have an Amiga 500.

    • @fnunez
      @fnunez 4 години тому

      Those things were expensive. A stock A500 sold for 500 UK pounds in 1988, that's $2000 in today's money. You'd need to mow a whole lot of lawns to afford that.

  • @crosdale
    @crosdale 4 години тому +1

    The monitor mounted on books took me back 🤣

  • @neuvocastezero1838
    @neuvocastezero1838 9 годин тому +2

    You say disk drives, I say cassette tapes.

  • @MurderMostFowl
    @MurderMostFowl 3 години тому +2

    I feel very called out on this video and yet I am loving it so much because it is so great. I was a total Commodore snob and we all used to call the TRS-80 the “trash 80” and Atari users were annoying. And basically everything in this video lol ( and I did have the memory map mostly memorized )
    SYS64738 baby!
    The only thing that an old timer like me would take issue with is I wouldn’t be caught dead with that monitor… commodore 1084 or 1702 or nothing baby!
    ( a couple of the jokes are technically more of a 90’s problem… monitor refresh rates and word processors on 10 disks and was more of a 1992+ kind of thing… and more in the PC realm, and basic didn’t come out u til DOS5 in 91 but so this is all so true and hilarious)

  • @testales
    @testales 9 годин тому +2

    Compared to what I had access to in the late 80s, this C64 setup would have been a high tech super computer I could only dream of.

    • @fnunez
      @fnunez 4 години тому +1

      Yeah a disk drive AND a monitor? And the guy says he has no money.

  • @RadicDotkey
    @RadicDotkey 8 годин тому +1

    You've just earned a subscriber.

  • @sto3359
    @sto3359 9 годин тому +1

    This brings back memories 😄

  • @STOCKSINTHEWILD
    @STOCKSINTHEWILD 9 годин тому +1

    0:08 Good old times, when you got rickrolled by your local radio station.

  • @CallousCoder
    @CallousCoder 4 години тому

    80s programming nerd here, there’s no substitute for 6502 assembly on a C64, best fun you can have coding. And no word processors until the 90s came on a single disk. WordPerfect 5.2

  • @ErazerPT
    @ErazerPT 5 годин тому

    Can i go back? Just in time to catch the 90s coming and the good times rollin...

  • @tplummer217
    @tplummer217 4 години тому

    Nailed it. On so many levels.

  • @thechadwick22
    @thechadwick22 9 годин тому +2

    Having a hard disc in the 80's... Mr money bags over here. Now where's that 16th 5 1/4" floppy disc so i can load this program..

    • @cjadams7434
      @cjadams7434 9 годин тому +2

      xMy apple IIgs was on the internet in 1990 and i had a removeable syquest hard disk drive for it and 12 inch graphics tablet.. it was souped up with sound card and a transwarpGS accelerator .. that thing lasted me from, 1987-1996… ! it was a beast…every slot was full. and all in color with a finder Macos interface

  • @dragonsage6909
    @dragonsage6909 9 годин тому +6

    🤣
    Ugh.. I don't miss those days!
    Thx

  • @kryzenskj
    @kryzenskj 8 годин тому +7

    "Staying on level 1 in your game builds character" lol

  • @paulchamberlain7942
    @paulchamberlain7942 3 години тому

    I miss the pre-jam sound of the dot matrix printer. You could print in glorious colour with a Star LC-10.

  • @davidjsutherland
    @davidjsutherland 7 годин тому +1

    I remember the 80's. Should have had a reference to Ultima by Lord British. Still, this was pretty bang on. I remember Edlin was a crap text editor.

  • @dotology
    @dotology 4 години тому

    Best chain of one-liners I've heard in ever

  • @FreXxXmeister
    @FreXxXmeister 27 хвилин тому

    "Joysticks are the future!" Clickclick, clickclick, clickclick, click. 🤣
    7:56 is gold.

  • @spot1401
    @spot1401 6 годин тому

    Those damn green monitors really made crossing the New York traffic lights in Last Ninja 2 a hell more difficult ....

  • @fluxtubes
    @fluxtubes 3 години тому

    I once had a working floppy disk. I put it in it's sleeve, and then I wrote what was on it on the sleeve. With a ballpoint pen. I no longer had a working floppy disk.

  • @nionioniosmeg
    @nionioniosmeg 2 години тому

    Bro these are literally the glasses passed down to me by my 80s computer nerd dad

  • @MrJacksspleen
    @MrJacksspleen 9 годин тому +6

    I was waiting for Ah-ha to show up and it did!

    • @sandrinowitschM
      @sandrinowitschM 5 годин тому

      Still love that song. Reminds me of my childhood.

  • @FrDismasSayreOP
    @FrDismasSayreOP 3 години тому

    Don't forget the Commodore SX and DX-64, "luggables" that worked pretty well... with a 3" crt

  • @Unknown-jt1jo
    @Unknown-jt1jo 6 годин тому

    This makes me nostalgic!

  • @Longlius
    @Longlius 7 годин тому +2

    lmao imagine having a computer so undercooked that your disk drive needs its own CPU
    - this post made by Atari gang

  • @scifihobo
    @scifihobo 8 годин тому +1

  • @DrumnBasted
    @DrumnBasted 5 годин тому

    Calendar entry from the 1980's : "June 16, 2016 - ping pongpractice"

  • @flopasen
    @flopasen 9 годин тому +2

    who has the key for my floppy disk storage case???

  • @fgfanta
    @fgfanta 7 годин тому

    The Commodore 64 Programmer's Reference Guide is 50% of why I learned English as a kid.

  • @Dr.W.Krueger
    @Dr.W.Krueger 4 години тому

    Meanwhile, the guy with the IRIS 2000 workstation looking down on everyone else. You either compute or you eat. Not both. ;)

  • @1life530
    @1life530 6 годин тому +1

    Real artists f*ckin ship!!!!

  • @robertjenkins6132
    @robertjenkins6132 6 годин тому

    6:26 - Zork reference 😁
    It's 2024 and people are still making those "Interactive Fiction" games for Infocom Z-Machine. (I've never been able to beat _Curses_ (1993) by Graham Nelson.)

  • @A_WoW_Player
    @A_WoW_Player 8 годин тому

    I remember trying to understand Turbo Pascal in the 90s and I stopped at page 27 of the book.

  • @heatherhutchinson3625
    @heatherhutchinson3625 7 годин тому

    He deserves his Netflix stand up special!

  • @WM-gr4qi
    @WM-gr4qi 4 години тому

    The stack of books under the monitor is so real...

  • @drewnewby
    @drewnewby 5 годин тому

    1000 lines of code, just smash out another 3000 and presto, you've got DOS.

  • @echobucket
    @echobucket 6 годин тому

    I'm triggered by the green monochrome screen on the C64, known for it's 16 colors.....

  • @K.F-R
    @K.F-R 3 години тому

    Finally, a video your haircut is suited to. ;))

  • @mohamedaityoussef9965
    @mohamedaityoussef9965 4 години тому

    he's baaaaackkkk

  • @taufik-nurrohman
    @taufik-nurrohman 2 години тому

    Just tried to change the video resolution to save my bandwidth but there is no options.

  • @philippkemptner4604
    @philippkemptner4604 7 годин тому

    If my Dad had an Atari I wouldn't have talked to him for a year!

  • @NathanaelNewton
    @NathanaelNewton 10 годин тому

    0:05 *immediate* flashbacks 😂
    0:08 That's got to be the most tasteful I've ever seen

  • @sdstorm
    @sdstorm 8 годин тому

    Ouch! My own SID chip was broken for a while.

  • @TheOriginalJohnDoe
    @TheOriginalJohnDoe 7 годин тому

    I'm sure this is recreated with AI in this amazing 4K version

  • @riling
    @riling 10 годин тому +7

    joystick is the future!

  • @peteblazar5515
    @peteblazar5515 9 годин тому

    Without Turbo 3600 my C=16 and Datasette 1531 were able to stop a time.

  • @clray123
    @clray123 Годину тому

    Nobody in the 80's would use the term AAA games, as it was not invented yet.

  • @stewiegriffin6503
    @stewiegriffin6503 9 годин тому

    thin ice, very thin

  • @jimkerak6404
    @jimkerak6404 9 годин тому

    for real though you should replace that original power supply, they are known to fry C64s

  • @otakudoomer646
    @otakudoomer646 8 годин тому

    I use a 1200 baud rate when saving my basicode to cassette.

  • @strayferal
    @strayferal 6 годин тому

    Hilarious! 🤣

  • @BsktImp
    @BsktImp 5 годин тому

    Has this been GAN/CNN upscaled from 4:3 450 lines or have you travelled back in time?

  • @joecruggle7638
    @joecruggle7638 3 години тому

    "this BASIC program took 3 months to write . . . from the magazine" - Man, those were the days. And then it took another 3 months to find the errors that you made.🙂

  • @CaribouDataScience
    @CaribouDataScience 4 години тому

    I remember installing Linux and Windows from flopies 😊

  • @David-Nord
    @David-Nord 9 годин тому

    OMG, where did you get the "Electric Dreams" poster!?