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DShiznit
Guru-in-Training
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
Posts: 3683
Location: The 24th Century
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 Posted: 02 Oct 2010 08:31:24 pm Post subject: |
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| KermMartian wrote: | | elfprince13 wrote: | | Still jumping the gun. There is still a huge amount of information I have to read from it. I was just posting this to show I was making progress even in the midst of my super hectic week. |
Ah, then pardon me, but still stunningly awesome.  Thanks for your dedication even when you're busy with real life; on behalf of all the current and future Freebuild players, I solicit our gratitude. |
You should pop over to http://theorangeblock.org and whip them into shape. When I tried to suggest that maybe your opinion as the #1 most prolific calculator programmer on the planet might be worth recognizing, they replied with assertions that calculator programming was a useless, irrelevant hobby... |
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Lucas W
Expert
Joined: 07 Sep 2009
Posts: 577
Location: Australia
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 04:27:45 am Post subject: |
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| I believe we said it has no use in the real world, if you want to code on a calculator for your spare time, fine. |
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DShiznit
Guru-in-Training
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
Posts: 3683
Location: The 24th Century
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 08:41:18 am Post subject: |
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| Lucas W wrote: | | I believe we said it has no use in the real world. |
| Quote: | use·less
–adjective
1.
of no use; not serving the purpose or any purpose; unavailing or futile: It is useless to reason with him.
2.
without useful qualities; of no practical good: a useless person; a useless gadget. |
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KermMartian
Site Admin
Joined: 14 Mar 2005
Posts: 55770
Location: Earth, Sol, Milky Way
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 08:44:33 am Post subject: |
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| Lucas W wrote: | | I believe we said it has no use in the real world, if you want to code on a calculator for your spare time, fine. |
If it had no use in the real world, it certainly wouldn't have helped tune my technological aptitude starting at a very early age, prompted me to use and master dozens of programming languages, help me learn the skills necessary to major in Electrical Engineering at one of the top engineering schools in the nation, earn two degrees in five years and well on my way to a PhD, and earn me the frequent efforts of headhunters, right? And it certainly wouldn't have let me make the lives of millions of students around the world just a little bit better, right? How selfish and useless of me.
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DShiznit
Guru-in-Training
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
Posts: 3683
Location: The 24th Century
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 08:50:53 am Post subject: |
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| I knew there were good paragraph-long reasons to justify it, I just couldn't put them into words as gracefully as you have. |
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KermMartian
Site Admin
Joined: 14 Mar 2005
Posts: 55770
Location: Earth, Sol, Milky Way
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 08:55:16 am Post subject: |
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| DShiznit wrote: | | I knew there were good paragraph-long reasons to justify it, I just couldn't put them into words as gracefully as you have. |
Cheers, thanks.
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Lucas W
Expert
Joined: 07 Sep 2009
Posts: 577
Location: Australia
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 08:55:53 am Post subject: |
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| So you can use it to learn other things |
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DShiznit
Guru-in-Training
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
Posts: 3683
Location: The 24th Century
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 08:59:08 am Post subject: |
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| That came off a bit more kiss-ass-y than intended, but yeah, working with calculators does prepare you for other things; one you forgot to mention Kerm is that invaluable experience with soldering and micro-circuitry. |
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KermMartian
Site Admin
Joined: 14 Mar 2005
Posts: 55770
Location: Earth, Sol, Milky Way
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 09:00:09 am Post subject: |
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| Lucas W wrote: | | So you can use it to learn other things |
Except if you read the paragraph, it's also a means in and of itself. For example, I recently got CALCnet2.2 to fully work on hardware calculators, a step forward that's been four years in the making since CALCnet2.2 started sorta-working on emulators. That's hugely gratifying, and even if it's unlikely that schools across the nation will suddenly install CALCnet infrastructure, it's cool to think I got calculators to network. The drive of calculator programming is not that it's easy (because it's quite the opposite) or even that it's some kind of macho "this is so hard therefore I'm manly" type of thing, it's the frustration and challenge of doing something amazing on such a primitive platform, and the sense of accomplishment when you succeed. And if it's a game or something that other people are likely to enjoy, then the magic of calculator-to-calculator linking will virally spread your work. Do you know how cool it is to meet someone, and look at their calculator, and find some of your work on it?
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Lucas W
Expert
Joined: 07 Sep 2009
Posts: 577
Location: Australia
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 09:08:51 am Post subject: |
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| Wouldn't be better to program for a more capable device? |
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KermMartian
Site Admin
Joined: 14 Mar 2005
Posts: 55770
Location: Earth, Sol, Milky Way
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 09:12:04 am Post subject: |
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| Lucas W wrote: | | Wouldn't be better to program for a more capable device? |
"Better" in the sense of more modern, maybe, but the whole point is to doing something challenging. Any beginner programmer can use Objective-C to make some kind of lame game for the iDevices. It takes a dedicated coder with low-level knowledge of registers, timing, bitmasking and shifting, and a million other things to make that same device in assembly on a calculator.
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DShiznit
Guru-in-Training
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
Posts: 3683
Location: The 24th Century
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 09:12:19 am Post subject: |
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| Generally speaking, you can't just solder a new chip or screen on a more complex device... Also, calculators are extremely widespread. Pretty much everyone has access to them one way or another, making the market for your projects freaking huge. |
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Lucas W
Expert
Joined: 07 Sep 2009
Posts: 577
Location: Australia
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 09:13:45 am Post subject: |
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| Dshiznit, I don't see DoorCS running on my home calculator. |
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Jimmg
Member
Joined: 28 Feb 2010
Posts: 116
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 09:14:29 am Post subject: |
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| Kerm, why are you taking such a defensive position man? It's just calculators. |
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DShiznit
Guru-in-Training
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
Posts: 3683
Location: The 24th Century
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 09:15:58 am Post subject: |
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| Is in the TI-83 or above family? Every school has them, colleges have even better ones, and even if you're in a 3rd-world country, you're likely to come across a red-cross manager using one at some point. |
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Lucas W
Expert
Joined: 07 Sep 2009
Posts: 577
Location: Australia
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 09:17:48 am Post subject: |
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| You said Calculators. Not TI calculators |
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KermMartian
Site Admin
Joined: 14 Mar 2005
Posts: 55770
Location: Earth, Sol, Milky Way
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 09:21:24 am Post subject: |
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| Jimmg wrote: | | Kerm, why are you taking such a defensive position man? It's just calculators. |
Because it's my thing.  I take pride in a lot of things in my life, including my home and my city, my education and its peripheral related things like my degrees, test scores, certifications, and all that, my EE projects, and my programing projects, my beautiful girlfriend, but in terms of uniqueness and notoriety, there's just a single world's most prolific graphing calculator programmer, and after putting in what's about 12 years of work into the community now, it's something that means a lot to me.
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DShiznit
Guru-in-Training
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
Posts: 3683
Location: The 24th Century
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 09:24:01 am Post subject: |
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| Lucas W wrote: | | You said Calculators. Not TI calculators |
I assumed we were all on the same page when it came to talking about calculators. The massively over-sized graphic at the top might have been your biggest hint... |
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elfprince13
OVER NINE THOUSAND!
Joined: 23 May 2005
Posts: 10234
Location: A galaxy far far away......
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 01:24:51 pm Post subject: |
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I'm going to split this into a topic on the merits of niche-platform programming.
And if you don't respect Kerm because of his calculator credentials, respect him as a graduate of the most selective electrical engineering program in the country 
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StickFigure Graphic Productions || VSHI: Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative
 
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KermMartian
Site Admin
Joined: 14 Mar 2005
Posts: 55770
Location: Earth, Sol, Milky Way
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2010 01:37:14 pm Post subject: |
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| elfprince13 wrote: | I'm going to split this into a topic on the merits of niche-platform programming.
And if you don't respect Kerm because of his calculator credentials, respect him as a graduate of the most selective electrical engineering program in the country |
Thanks Elfprince, I appreciate your confidence and support.
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