Hacker News: WalterBright

New comment by WalterBright in "The Intel 8087 chip: floating-point addition and subtraction"

WalterBright — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 01:27:24 +0000

TurboC generated very fast code. Up to a point. As the program got larger, the execution speed slowed down. This was puzzling, as TurboC didn't generate very good code. Until I discovered that the TurboC runtime library was implemented in carefully hand-coded assembler. This gave small programs (i.e. benchmark programs, the only programs that mattered) a big boost in speed! It was a smart move by Borland.

Zortech's `long double` was 80 bits. In D, the `real` type is 80 bits. Sadly, that isn't available on the AArch64 processor.

New comment by WalterBright in "Florida's HOAs and condo associations are making the housing crisis worse"

WalterBright — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 23:43:06 +0000

In WA we have enormous problems with Himalayan blackberries and scotch broom. When they get a toehold, they take over and leave a "dead zone" underneath. They're very hard to kill. The blackberries grow over 8 feet high and form a thicket that is a lot like razor wire.

Scotch broom seeds will also be viable up to 30 years.

New comment by WalterBright in "The Intel 8087 chip: floating-point addition and subtraction"

WalterBright — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 23:30:58 +0000

I meant ignored the 80 bit floating point. I received a lot of pushback for doing 80 bit arithmetic in D.

New comment by WalterBright in "The Intel 8087 chip: floating-point addition and subtraction"

WalterBright — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 21:48:49 +0000

> this is compounded by many compilers' decision to spill floating-point registers incorrectly (they're spilled as 32-bit or 64-bit, not 80-bit)

My compilers behaved properly.

New comment by WalterBright in "The Intel 8087 chip: floating-point addition and subtraction"

WalterBright — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 20:46:18 +0000

That was win64, not win32. My mistake.

New comment by WalterBright in "The Intel 8087 chip: floating-point addition and subtraction"

WalterBright — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 18:34:39 +0000

I always thought the 8087 was way cool, but it never really caught on. Early versions of Win32 did not save the 8087 registers on a context switch. I called up some people at Microsoft to please not destroy the 8087, and they relented and preserved the registers.

I've always been proud to support the 8087 with my compilers, and am baffled why the numerics people ignore it.

New comment by WalterBright in "Tesla Roadster"

WalterBright — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 05:02:16 +0000

And Shotwell would have gone nowhere without Musk.

New comment by WalterBright in "Tesla Roadster"

WalterBright — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 04:58:16 +0000

> our culture’s deserved rancor at late stage capitalist

Late stage capitalism was coined over a century ago. It still hasn't happened.

What does happen, however, is a company will grow until it strangles itself with committees and bureaucracy. And then gets replaced with a younger company. A good book on this is "The Innovator's Dilemma".

New comment by WalterBright in "An ESPN producer who quit because of sports gambling"

WalterBright — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:28:18 +0000

Not for the gambler, if a bookie/casino is involved.

New comment by WalterBright in "An ESPN producer who quit because of sports gambling"

WalterBright — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 23:45:44 +0000

For a long time I struggled to find a distinction between gambling and investing. And then I figured it out.

gambling - where the statistical odds are that you lose

investing - where the odds are you win

New comment by WalterBright in "Tesla Roadster"

WalterBright — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 22:54:45 +0000

The tax applied.

New comment by WalterBright in "Tesla Roadster"

WalterBright — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 18:31:54 +0000

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/prop-45-california-permitting-bu...

A bit of advice: resorting to insults is what happens when one doesn't have an argument.

If I may, I recommend a book for you: "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman (Nobel Prize winning economist).

https://www.amazon.com/Free-Choose-Milton-Rose-Friedman/dp/B...

It's an easy read.

New comment by WalterBright in "Tesla Roadster"

WalterBright — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 17:39:19 +0000

LOL

Free markets drive prosperity, socialism does the opposite.

What are the most expensive things in the US? Healthcare, housing, and education. Those are the most heavily regulated and subsidized by the government.

What are the cheapest things in the US? Software (free), TVs, computers, consumer goods. The least regulated and subsidized.

New comment by WalterBright in "Tesla Roadster"

WalterBright — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 17:19:07 +0000

> Him possibly suggesting

speculation

New comment by WalterBright in "Tesla Roadster"

WalterBright — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 17:13:11 +0000

The solution is to use a continuous function, not a step function.

New comment by WalterBright in "Tesla Roadster"

WalterBright — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 07:26:31 +0000

A man is much lighter than a car, so the figures for a car don't apply.

If it were throttled back just so you were lighter, you could possibly run much faster.

New comment by WalterBright in "Tesla Roadster"

WalterBright — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 07:24:53 +0000

My '72 Dodge has the usual thin steel body panels. The panels are quite light if you remove all the stuff attached to them. I have no faith it will stop a round, and I'm not going to try it!

I.e. they are light enough to be body armor, but if they blocked bullets people would have been using them as armor for a long time now.

New comment by WalterBright in "Tesla Roadster"

WalterBright — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 07:20:45 +0000

Detroit has often introduced "concept cars". They weren't meant for production.

New comment by WalterBright in "Tesla Roadster"

WalterBright — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 07:17:51 +0000

Stock car racers would literally dip the body panels into acid to make them thinner, shaving off weight.

New comment by WalterBright in "Tesla Roadster"

WalterBright — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 07:15:57 +0000

Starship has now achieved orbit. Darn that Musk!