# Simple Computing There appears to be emerging a renaissance in retro computers and retro computing technologies. My own earliest memories of computing are of playing games on my ZX Spectrum 48k and using BBC Model B's at school. In those days both hardware and software were much more simplistic and because of it, more accessible to hobbyists. Over 20 years have passed since I embarked on a career in I.T. and to be honest it was drudgery for the most part. Sometimes I was able to come up with some neat simple solution of my own devising but it was not often I had the freedom to craft something from the ground up. I also spent most of that time contributing to the commercial web for which I now have a lot of resentment. I much prefer tinkering with my old computers, they have character! Unlike the glossy screened featureless rectangles of today's masses. Not because of age, but because of the speed at which computing technology has moved on in my lifetime, I am a dinosaur of the digital age. To me this stuff isn't retro, it's what I grew up with, what I feel at home with and I will do my best to hold onto all that was good. ## Tools to create Every home computer in the 80's came with a built in programming environment and documentation allowing the new owner to extend the system by writing their own programs. A whole generation of game studios and legendary programmers emerged from this perfect storm. Unfortunately as commercial software took off the included tools allowing you to create your own steadily disappeared. In hind sight, if I were at the beginning of my career again, I would have learned C, Lua and POSIX shell. Forth has also recently come to my attention and intrigues me. Interestingly the Jupiter Ace[1] personal computer from the 80's came with a Forth interpreter as opposed to the usual basic interpreter of the time. Operating systems such as Collapse OS and Dusk OS are Forth based. We should be eternally grateful to those who have contributed to free and open source software. They have given us a lifeline from the tyranny of commercial operating systems and development software. I do believe however that much of it is far too complex... ## Plain text There are many text editors and command-line tools designed to work with plain text and this format is truly cross platform. I tend to write all my articles using markdown so that they can be converted easily to other formats which support text attributes like **bold**, _italic_ and headings etc. Although I rarely use anything other than headings and foot notes... I use vim for everything. Choose an editor and learn to use it well, this is your most important tool for working with text. ## Gopher Due to my resentment of the commercial web, and in some attempt to repent, I have become a gopher advocate and contributor. Through providing some small services (Gutenberg Search, Quarry Search Engine, Podcast Search) and writing content unique to gopher I hope to encourage its use and popularity. Gopher has not lost its community feel. Unlike the majority of the WWW, you don't have to look far to find content that has been created because it mattered to the author to share their knowledge or their opinion. ## A consideration To quote Solderpunk[2] "The dominant use of personal computers in the 21st century is the functional simulation of non-computers.". The emulation of analogue devices (clocks, calendars, typewriters, music players ...) and tasks. In response to that I'd simply like to say that it was only after the tools of creation were no longer distributed along with these devices and they lost the primary means of interacting with them in a meaningful way (a real keyboard) that they became devices of consumption. The clue is in the fact that the screen is the most significant part of them. To write software for android it would appear you need to download android studio which runs on what I would consider a real general purpose computer. They are not self contained multi purpose computers like those in the 80's. [1](gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Jupiter%20Ace) [2](gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/0/%7esolderpunk/phlog/do-you-even-compute-bro.txt)