A very long time ago, a young boy walked into Parle Book Depot not far from his Dad's office and bought Burki and Ward's MS-DOS System Programming. He was looking for Al William's DOS 5: A Developer's Guide, but that wasn't available at the Depot. Unfortunately for him, this was a book he did not understand at all.
A few months later he made the trip to Computer Bookshop accompanied by his Dad and bought DOS 5: A Developer's Guide. On sale fortuitously at that same time, for a mere 45 rupees, was also the Microsoft QuickBasic Reference. He would later add Ray Duncan's Advanced MS-DOS (version 4.0!) too.
Over the next few years all of these books would become dog-eared. One of them would be used so frequently that a hand-made index would be added to the book until Ralf Brown's list was discovered. And the book whose subtitle was "29 Pearls for MS-DOS programmers", so inscrutable when bought, would lead to much fun, discovery and enjoyment.
A systems programmer was made in those unforgettable years.
Took a small and enjoyable walk down memory lane today. Talked to a guy who started programming pretty much the same time I did though we branched off quite early. I turned into a systems programmer while he went off into other fun things, and I just thought I'd document why.
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2 comments:
Ah yes. It is always good to backtrack :) and seeing the first flap of the butterfly wing.
On another note: kickass photography seems to be happening to you (just saw the Flickr stream)
Thanks! But it's been a long time since I went out photographing stuff. Must get the camera out again.
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