Computers should be simple, because the simpler the computer is, the easier it is to program, and the easier it is to program, more people can program it.

Being able to program your own computer is like a superpower. Not only can you make the computer do what *you* want and need it to do, but you also sever the dependencies which constrain what is possible and bind you to external systems and their unchecked complexity.

I know people say they don’t want to write their own software, but I try to ask why. Often the reasons have less to do with writing software and more to do with a tech industry that wants to keep selling them things.

But if you go back and look closely at the humble 8-bit micros of the late 70’s and early 80’s you’ll see a wide range of machines that shipped with everything you needed to program them, and as a result millions of people learned how and wrote the most diverse range of applications ever known. Perhaps even more miraculous, most of them were compatible with different computers and shareable via any conceivable communications medium (print, tape, vinyl, radio, etc.)

It’s hard to concisely explain how powerful this is. I’ll probably write a lot more about this when I’m out west.

Thinking about the #pvm this morning and what other hardware I could port it to (so far it’s written in #golang out of convenience, so it shares the same targets as that language).

It’s all still wip of course and doesn’t do much yet but based on what’s done so far I think I could make it fit into an 8-bit AVR/Arduino, which is a fairly nice test for the low-end of the spectrum.

Ultimately I want to make possible to run on work on 8-bit micros like the Z80/6800/etc. but I don’t have a great toolchain for such hardware yet (all I have for my #rc2014 is the ROM assembler and no storage 🤣).

But cramming it into an arduino would be a good exercise and test to make sure I’m not leaning on Go features too much.

https://jasongullickson.com/personal-virtual-machines.html