Hacker News: ozhero

New comment by ozhero in "Celebrating 45 Years of Kermit with the First New C-Kermit Release in 15 Years"

ozhero — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 18:47:53 +0000

I used Kermit in many projects when I was younger, including synchronising data from remote branches of a Pool equipment company using dial-up modems.

Those were the days lol.

New comment by ozhero in "Linux Desktop Market Share Surpasses 10% in North America"

ozhero — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 18:44:19 +0000

I use Windows 11, Linux and MacOS on a daily basis and don't have any axes to grind on which one I think is best.

For older hardware that won't run Windows 11, I'm a huge fan of Linux Mint, especially for people migrating from Windows.

New comment by ozhero in "Why Software Factories Fail (or: harness engineering is not enough)"

ozhero — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 19:02:31 +0000

This is a very well written article and he makes his arguments backed up by data.

We may choose to disagree but thats the point of healthy debate based on clearly expressed opinions.

Key point is I don't think this is AI slop which is way too common in long form articles these days and in keeping with the whole point of his article.

New comment by ozhero in "Making"

ozhero — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 19:21:35 +0000

Your literally a legend IMHO.

Hugely generous in all the work you put into the public domain and I've been reading your guides for years.

BTW I also started in computing in 1978 on a DEC 10 Mainframe (in Assembler and then C) and Lunar Lander was my first game but played on a DECwriter (basically a line printer with a keyboard).

I'm still as passionate about IT as I was then!

New comment by ozhero in "Show HN: Bento - An entire PowerPoint in one HTML file (edit+view+data+collab)"

ozhero — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 19:08:43 +0000

This is excellent work!

Thanks for sharing and deserves a lot of Github stars!

New comment by ozhero in "Show HN: Word in Web – Near MS Word Parity Docx Editor in Web"

ozhero — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 19:02:25 +0000

This is excellent.

Deserves a lot more Github stars!

New comment by ozhero in "The Zilog Z80 has turned 50"

ozhero — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 16:30:59 +0000

Thanks for posting this.

New comment by ozhero in "The Zilog Z80 has turned 50"

ozhero — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 16:27:33 +0000

Or a first love (of the human kind) :-)

New comment by ozhero in "The Zilog Z80 has turned 50"

ozhero — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 16:25:56 +0000

"I still think there's something invaluable about learning computers from first principles down to the metal"

Totally agree!

I never went to Uni either (at least not until I retired) yet have had a very succesful career in IT and still love tinkering like it sounds you do.

Those were heady days :-)

New comment by ozhero in "The Computer at the Bottom of a Canal"

ozhero — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 16:20:37 +0000

A fascinating story.

I owned a Linn Sondek turntabe in the 70's with a Denon cartridge.

Spent a crazy amount on Hi-Fi chasing the audiophile dream :-)

New comment by ozhero in "A Road to Lisp: Which Lisp"

ozhero — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 21:06:54 +0000

For someone who knows nothing about Lisp I found this an excellent article.

Motivates me to learn more about Lisp (and Clojure)

New comment by ozhero in "Frame – Linux X server in Assembly"

ozhero — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 20:59:08 +0000

This is the very definition of "scratching your own itch" lol.

Very inspiring and I applaud your efforts.

I haven't written assembler in years but this inspires me to do a small project for the fun of it.

New comment by ozhero in "The Zilog Z80 has turned 50"

ozhero — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 20:40:35 +0000

I started programming in 1978 (In Assembler) and wanted to know not only how the software worked but how the hardware worked.

Found a great kit using the Z80 and built it and spent many nights with a logic probe and oscilloscope learning digital eletronics. Also devoured the Z80 manual learning the instruction set.

I'm nearly 70 now but remember those days like they were yesterday.

Truly a magnificent CPU

New comment by ozhero in "Guide to data tools landscape for developers"

ozhero — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 19:22:47 +0000

This is an excellent well written article with just the information you need to get a basic understanding of the field.