2022-10-14

Back in some unproductive retro loops. Recent things:

• The DOS Protected Mode API on Wikipedia.

• Installing Plan 9 (9front) on a VM, reading related papers. Breathing in its aesthetic.

• Installing Haiku Beta 3 on a VM. Doing some basic computing in there.

• Installing Watcom C compiler.

• Lisp stuff, again: specifically Scheme, specifically Prescheme and Scheme48.

• Watching videos about building "new" 486~ class machines (using PC104, for example).

• ... and videos about running "old" x86 machines, mostly through eBay and just ... pain.

These are perfectly fine hobbies for people and interesting systems on their own, but I know this pattern. I spend a few evenings or more obsessing about this stuff, then I start to realise that computing was just more difficult in the past and even if I was to set up one of these old systems exactly how I like: it has no future. Or, rather, it does have a future -- I just already live in it.