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486 points ethanpil | 7 comments | 25 Jun 25 00:07 UTC | HN request time: 1.507s | source | bottom
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jksmith ◴[25 Jun 25 01:21 UTC] No.44372826[source]▶
This is just a "because I wanted to" project. And I get that; done a lot of those myself just to understand what the hell was going on. But the rewrite of turbo vision into FPC and compiling to half a dozen targets has been around for 20 years. Turbo vision is probably the best text mode windowing library in existence. The cool fun kicks in when you can map a whole text screen to an array like so: var Screen: Array[1..80,1..25] Of Byte Absolute $B800; // or something like that as i recall

What turbo vision brought to the game was movable, (non) modal windows. Basically a lot of rewriting that array in a loop. Pretty snappy. I made a shitload of money with that library.

replies(6): >>44372927 #>>44373230 #>>44373408 #>>44374737 #>>44376013 #>>44381270 #
throwaway127482 ◴[25 Jun 25 01:39 UTC] No.44372927[source]▶
I am curious about how you made money with it, if you don't mind sharing.
replies(1): >>44372980 #
1. jksmith ◴[25 Jun 25 01:52 UTC] No.44372980[source]▶
My first company out of uni was a company that sold a tv advertising application written in dos. It did all the reports, put together spot advert packages, measuring reach and frequency, cost per point, etc. Used Neilsen ratings for data. The company at the time paid commissions along with salary to programmers. The app still lives on in windows, but I've been out of that game for decades. Written in TP for dos, then Delphi for windows.
replies(1): >>44373064 #
2. TheAmazingRace ◴[25 Jun 25 02:09 UTC] No.44373064[source]▶
Honestly dude, this is clever. Good on you for finding an opportunity to make a useful tool and you made out like a bandit in the process. :)
replies(2): >>44373196 #>>44378711 #
3. jksmith ◴[25 Jun 25 02:38 UTC] No.44373196[source]▶
That was the toolchain that my company used. Turbo vision was a Borland product, back when Philippe Khan was running the company. We were that ahead of the curve for "shrinkwrapped software development" at the time. That legacy, Delphi and FPC still maintain the standard for desktop, native dev, really for the last 30 years.
replies(1): >>44373371 #
4. esafak ◴[25 Jun 25 03:18 UTC] No.44373371{3}[source]▶
Kahn is still pretty active: https://philippekahn.com/
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5. velcrovan ◴[25 Jun 25 12:03 UTC] No.44376302{4}[source]▶
I skimmed the blog. I detect LLM output, but no person.
replies(1): >>44378410 #
6. natebc ◴[25 Jun 25 15:27 UTC] No.44378410{5}[source]▶
I think we're going to have to get used to feeling like this. Makes me sad a little.
7. rollcat ◴[25 Jun 25 15:54 UTC] No.44378711[source]▶
The broadcast industry continues to move at a slow pace compared to IT, and understandably - it's live TV, you need things to work 24/7/365.

That means there's always an opportunity for the resourceful.