"...Back in the 8-bit days of 64kB of RAM and no HDD, programmers learned to make neat and optimised code to work within the constraints. As memory increased, these skills withered and atrophied..."
I remember reading an article back in the day about the guy who was tasked with converting Sim City from the Amiga to the humble BBC.
Apparently, there was one routine in the Amiga that used considerably more memory than was wholly available on the Beeb.
And yet (apart from graphically of course), he pretty much nailed it with a like-for-like reproduction.
At college I had to learn to program in assembly - in hex - on "development boards" with <8KB RAM so it was imperative that anything you tried to do was neat.
Mind you I was never very good at it myself but some of the others there had a natural gift for it that was staggering.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
