software is a mirror that reflects the times and the environment it was created in.

[psf@oldbytes.space]

software is a mirror that reflects the times and the environment it was created in.

this is why much software created in the 1970s counterculture was joyful and humanistic, and why much software created in the 2020s capitalistic hellscape is soul-crushing malware (adware, spyware).

#retrocomputing can mean celebrating hardware limitations and creative coding, but it can also mean celebrating personal computing - computers that are tools for liberation - bicycles for the mind, not cattle trains to the slop farm.

[nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social]

@psf I would argue that the Age of Enshittification began in the 2010s (hard to pin down exactly. Maybe 2015-ish) but otherwise absolutely 100% agreed.

Computers and technology as a whole used to be neat. I just can't emphasize enough how exciting it all was. When some new tech, device, or software came out it was exciting! Now it's pretty much "*groan* how much is it going to screw me over and when will I be forced to use it?"

It's not just computers. It's everything. For example, cars next year will track your every movement and know where you scratch while trying to decide if you might be impaired and thus not allowed to drive based on criteria that will never allow for all possibilities.

I begin to wonder these days if there is any hope for this ever to end really.

[f4grx@chaos.social]

@psf so much this

[notknown@infosec.exchange]

@nazokiyoubinbou @psf

Very disturbing that surveillance has progressed so blatantly with so many lining up happy to participate.

[wastelandwandrr@freeradical.zone]

@psf I thought I was nostalgic, but Yes!

[geos@toot.community]

@psf
Man did you get that right.

[profbib@layer8.space]

@psf I am fairly sure that I have never had anything on social media touch my soul quite like the phrase “bicycles for the mind.” Love that so freaking much.

[morgan@sfba.social]

@psf I worked at #Broderbund and #GeoWorks, two companies that made software for people, to make their lives better. I'm glad I did. I still work in tech, but do not recognize that desire to help people in the current environment.

[quixote@mastodon.nz]

@psf "computers that are bicycles for the mind, not cattle trains to the slop farm."

Perfect.

[psf@oldbytes.space]

@profbib To give credit where credit's due, I got "bicycles for the mind" from Steve Jobs, who, knowing him, probably got it from someone else.

[richardazia@indieweb.social]

@psf Vibe coding is going to hit Apple app developers and Android app developers hard. I miss the "free" web, when we were passionate about sharing, in the 90s, and community in the early 200s. I don't like the mercanary 2010s and 2020s.

[turre@mementomori.social]

@morgan @psf
This. People used to be proud of the software they created! And for good reasons too.

I have fond memories of C64 GEOS by Berkeley Softworks which later became GeoWorks. There was an interview in I think Compute's Gazette on their work on GEOS, how their engineers would take a routine and try to shave off clock cycles and bytes of memory use. And do it several times per each routine. It was such an amazing environment on the ridiculously constrained hardware. And now we have emulators for that stuff running inside the browser, consuming several gigabytes of memory.

One of the fondest memories of it is a when I returned a larger history homework project written with GeoWrite (I think in 1990), and the teacher asked me to stay after class for a chat. I was dreading some disciplining, although wasn't sure for what. Instead he was genuinely amazed at the print quality and just wanted to know what equipment I had used to do it. He was something between flabbergasted and disbelief when I told him it was entirely done on a Commodore 64. He said his expensive new PC couldn't produce anything like it.

What I didn't tell him was that GeoWrite didn't have scandinavian letters, so I had to add the dots over ä and ö manually 😄

#c64 #geos

[dwardoric@chaos.social]

@Turre @morgan @psf Wonderful story! 😊

[morgan@sfba.social]

@Turre @psf we really did think we were going to change the world, at #GeoWorks. Everyone was young. Our most successful hiring practice was to recruit interns from the University of California at Berkeley, basically across the road. These third-year electrical engineering / computer science students would work for us for six months, get credit and pay, work on really cool software and hardware, then we'd make some a job offer, and many would accept. I worked with the smartest people, there. I learned so much. I came in the "wrong way"; self-taught. I'm still friends with many of them. I'm glad you had a good experience with our software! It was a labor of love. Some made some money, most gained valuable experience. A few went on to greatness. A bit of trivia; Eric Schmidt (Google) was on our board, later in the game...

Cc @lahosken @witort @witort@mastodon.social Did I get it right?

[morgan@sfba.social]

@Turre @psf @lahosken @witort @witort@mastodon.social one more notable GeoWorks alumnus; Curtis Yarvin.

[lahosken@hachyderm.io]

@morgan @Turre @psf @witort@sfba.social @witort@mastodon.social oof, yeah

[turre@mementomori.social]

@morgan @psf @lahosken @witort@sfba.social @witort@mastodon.social
I remember seeing the news of GEOS ported to the PC and thinking, that is going to wipe everything else off the floor. It should have!

That was one my first lessons on just how unfair that industry is.

[mauvedeity@mastodon.social]

@psf oof. This is Conway’s Law writ large, I think. I had noticed this, thank you so much for sharing.

[morgan@sfba.social]

@Turre @psf @lahosken @witort @witort@mastodon.social when Microsoft introduced Windows, we were on a project with IBM's Eduquest division, and that began a conversation about a project called which would be called 'Baseball,' which was the idea of bolting on PC GEOS as the gui on top of IBM's PC-DOS. Never happened. (Baseball breaks Windows.)

[jack@status.sexyferret.science]

@psf@oldbytes.space lmao