Tech Tinkering
techtinkering.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2009
Covers retro computing: CP/M software, Modula-2 and Mouse compilers, Commodore VIC-20 tools, Corewar, and classic text-mode BSD games.
What HN saysHN links it for old-computing write-ups, such as its list of BSD text games (where commenters recall 'hunt') and the Mouse language on CP/M.
22HN people shared it
8linked it in comments
28stories submitted
546story points
7 months agolast shared
2009people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1If only Borland had stuck with Turbo Modula-2 for CP/M (2013)3 people · 191 points · first shared 2018 · 88 comments on HN
- 2The Mouse Programming Language on CP/M3 people · 70 points · first shared 2024 · 14 comments on HN
- 3Modula-2 Compilers on CP/M2 people · 44 points · first shared 2022 · 9 comments on HN
- 4Word Processors on the Commodore VIC-20 (2021)2 people · 26 points · first shared 2021 · 15 comments on HN
- 5An Introduction to Corewar (2009)2 people · 4 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 6Interactive file managers on CP/M2 people · 3 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 7Compression and archiving on cpm2 people · first shared 2021
- 8My top 10 classic text mode bsd games2 people · first shared 2018
- 9Turbo Pascal: A Great Choice for Programming Under CP/M (2013)1 people · 150 points · first shared 2021 · 115 comments on HN
- 10I Love Ed on CP/M1 people · 15 points · first shared 2020 · 20 comments on HN
- 11The Smallest Communication Program in the World?1 people · 14 points · first shared 2010 · 2 comments on HN
- 12DIR Alternatives on CP/M1 people · 6 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 13Storing Machine Code in REM Statements on the Vic-201 people · 4 points · first shared 2021 · 2 comments on HN
- 14Installing the Hi-Tech Z80 C Compiler for CP/M1 people · 3 points · first shared 2021 · 1 comments on HN
- 15The Pilot Programming Language on CP/M1 people · 3 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
spot · 2025-11-09
Before xtrek and eventually netrek, there was hunt: https://techtinkering.com/2009/08/11/my-top-10-classic-text-mode-bsd-g… you might think that games back then were slow but this one was fast paced mayhem. using the vi commands was perfect.
schemescape · 2021-05-27
If you're interested in the Commodore era: https://techtinkering.com/
Tepix · 2018-05-16
If you want to internalise the vi cursor movement keys, play the old unix game "hunt" with your colleagues or classmates.
See http://techtinkering.com/2009/08/11/my-top-10-classic-text-mode-bsd-ga… (it's at no. 2)
"This is a multi-player games that can be played over a network, or via multiple terminals on one machine. It consists of a top-down view of a maze where you run around trying to find your opponents to kill. There are a number of weapons and you can also play in teams. It is surprisingly fun, a sort of top-down text mode doom.
Originally written by Conrad Huang and Greg Couch in 1979/80."
PaulHoule · 2025-01-20
It's easy to compress a sorted dictionary by turning something like
a ab abc to
a 1b 2c where the prefix is the number of characters shared with the last word (and might be coded as a byte as opposed to a digit like you're thinking there. This would be a simple form of compression to code up in BASIC unlike Huffman or most LZW variants which involve bit twiddling and maintaining tree data structures... Though I do remember writing SQ and USQ [1] in BASIC)
[1] https://techtinkering.com/articles/compression-and-archiving-on-cpm/
lproven · 2024-09-14
I shared a blog post about running this on CP/M recently...
https://techtinkering.com/articles/the-mouse-programming-language-on-c…
tyingq · 2021-04-17
A couple of other text viewers for CP/M: https://techtinkering.com/articles/text-viewers-on-cpm/
clarifier123 · 2021-01-30
See also an article about Modula-2 for CP/M from the same author: https://techtinkering.com/2013/03/12/if-only-borland-had-stuck-with-tu…
Discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16704733
bodyfour · 2014-02-03
It's a war story from my father, so I have to admit that the details could be corrupted. He worked with a variety of machines in the 60s, so it was believable that one had a permissive enough FORTRAN to allow that. It's also possible that your explanation of it being reference-argument corruption.
I'm almost curious enough to fire up a PDP-8 emulator and see what 4K FORTRAN does. Almost.
http://techtinkering.com/2009/07/14/running-4k-fortran-on-a-dec-pdp8