My daily driver has 32GB of RAM and a processor that can run a billion operations per second. My favorite computer to tinker with has 64KB of RAM and runs BASIC. It’s worse in every measurable way, and I love it.
Here’s why: when you have 64KB, every byte matters. There are no layers of abstraction hiding what’s actually happening. No operating system doing a hundred things in the background. No framework of a framework of a framework. It’s just you, the hardware, and whatever you can fit in memory. You type something, and the machine does it. You can understand the entire thing, top to bottom. When’s the last time you could say that about any modern computer?
That feeling — of being able to hold the whole system in your head — is rare and addictive. Modern development has its strengths, but it also has so much invisible complexity that you spend half your time fighting tools instead of building things.
I’m going to write about retro hardware here: what it was like, what we can still learn from it, and how to actually get your hands on it (or emulate it) in 2026. First up will probably be the Commodore 64, because it’s cheap to find and there’s something beautiful about a machine that boots into a programming language.
Don’t just read about old computers and feel nostalgic for a thing you never used. Fire up an emulator tonight, or find a $40 machine at a swap meet, and actually type PRINT "HELLO" into it. Nostalgia is passive. Doing is not.
Comments