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2022-10-14

Back in some unproductive retro loops. Recent things:

- The DOS Protected Mode API on Wikipedia.

- Installing Plan 9 (9front) on a VM, reading related papers. Breathing in its aesthetic.

- Installing Haiku Beta 3 on a VM. Doing some basic computing in there.

- Installing Watcom C compiler.

- Lisp stuff, again: specifically Scheme, specifically Prescheme and Scheme48.

- Watching videos about building "new" 486~ class machines (using PC104, for example).

- ... and videos about running "old" x86 machines, mostly through eBay and just ... pain.

These are perfectly fine hobbies for people and interesting systems on their own, but I know this pattern. I spend a few evenings or more obsessing about this stuff, then I start to realise that computing was just _more difficult_ in the past and even if I was to set up one of these old systems exactly how I like: it has no future. Or, rather, it does have a future -- I just already live in it.