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Let's see, I've never done embedded programming so my limitations weren't too bad. On the PDP-11/20 running RSTS with BASIC-Plus, you had an 8KB address space for your program and data. Since it was interpreted, code comments took up space and thus were discouraged. Variable names weren't a space issue since they were limited to upper case letters A-Z, optionally followed by a digit, optionally followed by a type indicator: No type indicator was a floating point number, a type indicator of '%' was a 16 bit integer, and a type indicator of '$' was a string.
Given the address space limitations, most programs were broken into one or more data entry programs which interacted with the user, did limited data validation, wrote the input data into a temporary file, and then passed control to another program, using the "CHAIN" keyword, that did additional validations, including file-based validations, and if everything was OK, updated the actual production data files. If there was a data problem, the program would CHAIN back to the data entry program with a link to a temporary file that had information about what was wrong with the data.
The file system was equally primitive. You read and wrote 512 byte blocks of data from/to the disk. The rest was up to the developer. Some people wrote indexes which lived in separate files and sped up access. I wrote a hash-based lookup with collision detection and handling.
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Chris Maunder wrote: What sort of relatively recent stuff (this was 10 years ago) did you used to have to do to get your apps to work?
Boot Windows with NUMCPUS=1 on an early dual core machine so our video recording software would continue to work when we stopped recording the audio. Oh, and the OS happily ignored the directive and ran itself and our software on both CPU cores anyway, but only with NUMCPUS=1 did our software run correctly.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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Also related to very early days in Web programming. I remember we had a Sun Web Server that had to interact with some legacy system and we lacked connectivity libraries to it; however there was a command line tool that could process simple queries and dump them to the screen. We used a CGI C executable that piped and redirected the screen output of the command line tool. We had to parse the screen-based report to extract the data fields, but eventually managed to provide exactly what the customer was asking for. 
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An unnamed CP Member[^] posted a bit earlier: "... got any ID"?
I got ID!
When yer in the state of Idaho, of which the state acronym is ID, here are some potential responses ~
When asked for ID, reply, "Look around. Take all ya want."
Officer: Can I see your ID, please?
Reply: Your standing on it.
Officer: Can I see your ID, please?
Reply: It's not my ID. I'm just visiting.
Officer: Can I see your ID, please?
Reply: No thanks. I prefer to keep <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102494/">My Own Private Idaho</a>[<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102494/" target="_blank" title="New Window">^</a>] just that.
Officer: Can I see your ID, please?
Reply: Show me your psychology license, first.
modified 18-Mar-14 14:30pm.
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All good replies and if I get to ID and get stopped I'll try one out.
It just so happens that I'm taking a month long road trip to the National Parks and monuments of the NW US and may well be going through ID on my way back to SC.
Along with Antimatter and Dark Matter they've discovered the existence of Doesn't Matter which appears to have no effect on the universe whatsoever!
Rich Tennant 5th Wave
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Quote: MacSpudster
You would know a lot about Idaho wouldn't you.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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I have been there for the summer solstice...I was amazed that it was 9:30 and the sun was still up! I have a customer in Coeur d' Alene who I haven't seen in a long time...great place! 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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Damn but that's sad. I'm sorry that you've had to do that.
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Losing a pet is hard, losing one that was like family is harder.
![Rose | [Rose]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif)
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Sorry to hear about that.
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Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Sorry to hear of your lose.
Along with Antimatter and Dark Matter they've discovered the existence of Doesn't Matter which appears to have no effect on the universe whatsoever!
Rich Tennant 5th Wave
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Losing a family member is Always hard.
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What a pity...
We had to do that with our dog years ago, same reason: cancer...
It was really hard and I still love and remember him...
In our case the vet was a f***ing retarded and was sure that it was a little illness that should be vanished after two months of pills... after those two months without an improvement and after going to another vet we discovered it was cancer and that if we would have got it before he would have lived longer…
It’s hard but sometimes it is the only you can do to avoid more pain to your friend.
Ours was named Valent (which means valiant) and it was one more of our family and the legit owner of our sofa.
A big for all our friends and condolences.
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Never good, but a lot better than watching her suffer.
Trouble is they are so damn good at hiding it until it's far too big a problem to do anything about! When Killashandra developed bladder cancer we didn't even know until she suddenly staggered when walking. An hour later she is in the vet office and he's saying it's massive and inoperable. Ten minutes later and she was gone.
A friend gave us a picture frame with a photo of Killa in it when she heard, and it says "Cats leave paw prints on your heart".
It's true, they do. And they also leave a large cat-shaped hole in the house.
Rest in peace Missy Belle, and our condolences on losing a member of your family.
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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thatrajaCode converters | Education Needed
No thanks, I am all stocked up. - Luc Pattyn
When you're wrestling a gorilla, you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is - Henry Minute
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I'm sorry for your loss.
Software Zen: delete this;
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A police officer sees a man driving around with a pickup truck full of penguins. He pulls the guy over and says, "You can't drive around with penguins in this town! Take them to the zoo immediately."
The guy says okay, and drives away. The next day, the officer sees the guy still driving around with the truck full of penguins - and they're all wearing sunglasses. He pulls the guy over and demands, "I thought I told you to take these penguins to the zoo yesterday?"
The guy replies, "I did. Today I'm taking them to the beach!"
/ravi
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...got any ID? bout what?
Good one. 
Along with Antimatter and Dark Matter they've discovered the existence of Doesn't Matter which appears to have no effect on the universe whatsoever!
Rich Tennant 5th Wave
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Good one Ravi!
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