• new arrival (unregistered)

    can't wait for more. thanks for the write-ups ellis!

  • (nodebb)

    Much better multi-part stories than the old Hanzo/Mercy/Sergio crap years ago.

  • dusoft (unregistered)

    Keep 'em coming!

  • Officer Johnny Holzkopf (unregistered)

    "I saw line after line of an archaic programming language that the Egyptians might’ve used to build the pyramids." - Was it APL?

  • 516052 (unregistered)

    Ah to be young and full of vigor and stupidity.

  • Steve (not that one) (unregistered) in reply to Officer Johnny Holzkopf

    "Was it APL?" Nah. If it were APL it'd be a single impossibly long line.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Steve (not that one)

    "Was it APL?" Nah. If it were APL it'd be a single impossibly long line.

    And it would be in Greek, not Egyptian.

  • 516052 (unregistered)

    You'd think so. But as always it's complicated.

    Basically, if you look at the earliest pyramids they were all built using CTOS and later KILN operating systems imported from Sumeria. The systems were based off cuneiform and writing them involved carving your code into a tablet roughly 3x2 cubits and having an unpaid intern (I think that's the PC term for slave these days) carry them up the side of the Zigurat to sun dry. KILN later improved that by adding support for a wood fired thermal compiler.

    That is why they look kind of wonky. Like stepped pyramids and such. KILN in particular was really good at building steps but it was built around the square as its base so didn't really work well with triangles.

    Later on the Egyptians started rolling their own code after which I kind of lost track with the technology. But I know they basically had their own tech stack by the 4th Dynasty. I had a coworker back in the day who moved to Egypt to work on porting DOOM to what ever OS they were using and I remember him constantly complaining about having to carve things into stone instead of clay.

    Greek only came into the picture very late and mainly out of necessity as by the time of Homer the Egyptian tech industry had gone the way of Eastern Block computers. They basically over invested into stone carving and completely missed the rise of alphabet compilers.

  • Hmmmm (unregistered)
    Comment held for moderation.

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