[HN Gopher] Calculator Construction Set
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       Calculator Construction Set
        
       Author : cyanf
       Score  : 52 points
       Date   : 2023-11-09 11:26 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.folklore.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.folklore.org)
        
       | tromp wrote:
       | The name reminds me of the Calculus of Constructions [1], the
       | type theory underlying proof assistant Coq.
       | 
       | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus_of_constructions
        
       | macintux wrote:
       | Reminds me of Dubl-Click's calculator construction kit for
       | classic MacOS. I spent, I think, $75 on it back when that was a
       | lot of money for an underemployed kid; never got any real value
       | out of it, but was fun to play with.
       | 
       | https://www.macintoshrepository.org/1894-calculator-construc...
        
         | jhbadger wrote:
         | There were a lot of "construction kits" around that time, Bill
         | Budge's 1982 "Pinball Construction Set" was perhaps the first.
         | but there were things like the Adventure Construction Set,
         | Music Construction Set, etc., that let people make their own
         | versions of a program, typically (but not always) games, using
         | a visual interface (even on 8-bit computers). I wonder where
         | these things have gone. Yes, today we have things like Scratch,
         | but that's more a programming language even if it is visual.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball_Construction_Set
        
           | lioeters wrote:
           | I remember seeing a screenshot of the Music Construction Set.
           | It's fascinating how they were able to achieve such complex
           | interface given the size/resolution of the screen and other
           | technical limitations like memory constraints.
           | 
           | It also reminds me that SimCity started as a kind of city
           | construction set. As a genre of software, it does seem
           | related to end-user programming.
        
       | zanderwohl wrote:
       | The thing that makes a truly brilliant programmer is the ability
       | to manage your bad manager -- to draw out demands they're
       | incapable of articulating.
        
       | ace2358 wrote:
       | Excellent story. Does anyone else wish we could go back to a time
       | where designs lasted more than 2-3 years and CEOs cared a bit
       | about it?
        
       | DonHopkins wrote:
       | I hacked an X11 window manager to take a command line argument
       | telling it which window id to treat as the root window, then ran
       | xcalc, discovered its window id with "xwininfo" or some such
       | utility, then ran the window manager on the calculator, putting
       | window frames around each of the calculator's buttons, so you
       | could resize them, move them around, open and close them to
       | icons, etc! That was a truly customizable calculator.
        
       | Zelphyr wrote:
       | Here's the result:
       | https://i.insider.com/5443c4556bb3f7f05dbaa658?width=1014
        
       | billyhoffman wrote:
       | I love Andy's early history of the Mac at Folklore.org. It's a
       | great read.
       | 
       | A few years back, with Andy's blessing, I extracted all the posts
       | and converted them to Markdown, to address a few issue I found
       | with Folklore.org:
       | 
       | * Does not have a mobile friendly layout
       | 
       | * Missing images
       | 
       | * Low res-thumbnails used in articles, requiring links out to
       | high resolution ones. Missing copyright/license information about
       | the images
       | 
       | * Broken links
       | 
       | * Accessibility issues (images without ALT text, etc)
       | 
       | * Formatting issues
       | 
       | * No Metadata
       | 
       | * Table-based layouts with complex and obtuse HTML markup.
       | 
       | I find this an easier reading experience.
       | 
       | Project: https://github.com/acidus99/folklore.org-export
       | 
       | All the posts in Markdown:
       | https://github.com/acidus99/folklore.org-export/tree/main/Po...
        
       | NelsonMinar wrote:
       | This reminds me of modern software that exposes all these design
       | layout decisions to the user. Sizes of UI elements, fonts.
       | Detailed colors. People say they love the customizability and
       | there's a whole world of sharable themes for things. Me, I'd
       | prefer the software had the right visual design out of the box
       | and didn't need me configuring it.
        
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       (page generated 2023-11-09 23:00 UTC)