Say hello to Make, a "virtual machine" - or rather a sort of playground - that
I started developing back in 1989 (when I was 15 years old). It's heavily
inspired by minicomputers, old CBM machines, the C64 and C128, Apple-1 ...
However, back then, it was way too ambitious a project and thus lay dormant
from 1992. But since around 2012, I've been working on Make again from time to
time. In early 2022, I really caught the bug and then systematically worked
through all the outstanding issues and implemented all the features I had
always dreamt of - until now. Because yayy, now it's finished!
It sports its own programming language ("Make-Skript") with Lisp-style
arithmetic, a microkernel architecture (even some Make commands themselves are
implemented in Make-Skript!), a "hardware" text mode with a "hardware"
blinking attribute, a "hardware" cursor and redefinable characters ("hardware"
character generator), and also a monochrome gfx mode.
What is it "good" for, though? Well ... erm ... nothing. But you can immerse
yourself in it just as if it were a real vintage computer system you were the
operator of, write your own programs and explore the "hardware" to push it to
its limits :)
To install, just create a folder "make" anywhere on your hard disk and unpack
the .lha archive into it. Then simply start Make. It uses the 640x256x4 Amiga
OCS hires mode, please note that it's NOT advisable to promote it to an RTG
mode, though. Be aware it takes over the system until you quit ("sys")!
With "help" you get a list of help options. Make has a complete self-contained
help system that teaches you everything you need to know. And check out the
included demo programs. Try "dir" (or hit F1). Have fun! Of course, I'd be
eager to get some feedback.
Minimum system requirements: 68020 with FPU, 1 MB Chip and 1 MB Fast RAM, but
that's a bit too slow to really enjoy. For a good experience, I'd recommend at
least a 68030 with 25 MHz, preferably 50 MHz or higher.
Ah yeah, last but not least ... what does "Make" even mean? What does it stand
for? TBH, I don't even remember. Multipurpose Analytical Kybernetic Engine? ;)
But what I do remember, though, is what ignited the spark when I was about 13
years old. My late aunt, who was one of the first female mainframe system
administrators in Germany and was still compiling her own Linux kernels well
into her eighties, once took me to the computer room of Reinshagen Kabelwerke,
where she worked at that time, and showed me the operation of their IBM
mainframe system. I've never forgotten that day. And when I got my first
Amiga, I got to work ;)
Check out these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrvGCU2V7FInraeszpXSFzWQ_HV2f3Kvj
... and also this thread: https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=118384
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