• a programming language with a strong expressive type system
• functional programming
• correct by construction, easy to use, hard to misuse Matt Godbolt
• enforced resource management
• behavioral driven design (BDD; aka TDD but at the behavioral level)
• Scala is an expressive, scalable, and safe high level language.
• Rust is an expressive, safe, systems level language

AWS

resume: HTML PDF

I built a Heath FM portable radio kit in my late teens. I learned how to solder, read schematics, and test circuitry. I then picked up several electronic experiment / lab kits. These kits had a breadboard, power supply, and many components to build circuits. I learned how to use a multimeter, oscilloscope, and logic analyzer. And then picked up a couple of breadboards and Radio Shack components to build my own circuits.

High school computer lab has TRS-80 III computers that we used to learn operating system and computer science concepts with MS Basic.

CPU: 6809 Clock: 1 MHz RAM: 4KB ROM: 16KB Video: 32KB Storage: cassette tape OS: Color Basic ROM - a MS basic variant

Keyboard: 53 keys Display: 32x16 text, 64x32 graphics; 9 colors Sound: 1 channel; 6 bit Ports: 1 joystick, 1 cassette, 1 serial, 1 expansion bus Price: $399.95

My first computer purchase was a TRS-80 Color Computer I in 1982 - 2 years after its introductions.

I made many modifications to the computer over the years. I started with a 16KB ram expansion, then a floppy disk controller with 5 1/4 inch disks.

Followed by soldering in bank selection and additional memory that expanded the capabilities to 512KB. And eventually added a hard drive controller and a 10MB hard drive. This new setup meant other OSes could be booted from the hard drive. This new ability allowed me to move from Color Basic as the OS to OS-9.

I also moved from Basic to Assembler and C as OS-9 offered more tools and applications.

I also wrote an Electrical CAD tool - in C - with limited logic simulations to continue my Electrical Engineering dream. Yes I had glorious aspirations as I moved closer to becoming an electrical and computer engineer.

The hardware and software languages gave me the cross domain knowledge of how hardware and software interact - as in, how to write drivers - the memory page flipping.

I also studied the 8080 / Z80 machine code. But really liked the 68xx processors.

And of course friends with Commodore 64 machines.

This TRS-80 Color computer experience was truly a joy.

• registers
• memory management
  • program space (.text)
  • global/static data space (.data, .bss, .rodata)
  • stack space (function call frames, local variables)
  • heap space (dynamic memory allocation)
• I/O
• timers
• interrupts

• functions
• control structures
• data structures
• pointers and memory management
• file I/O
• compilation and linking
• modularity and code organization
• portability - even though not leveraged
• standard libraries
• debugging and optimization
• low-level programming

The Amiga 1000 was my next computer purchase that exposed me to a well integrated set of core libraries - the Amiga OS; Commodore had done well - and allowed me to continue my programming expedition of C and Assembly this time with the 16 bit 68000. This was an impressive machine and I sometimes miss it.

Years later I would build a Pentium 5 machine, explore OS/2, learn Windows 3.0, and lug the gear to friends houses for networking game sessions - Doom, Riot, and others I am not remembering.

Each of us occassionally blutering out something like

• "Where did ??? go?" where ??? was one of Chuck, Dean, Rob, or Terry.
• "Who was that?"

from another room. Fun times.