Charles Petzold Quotes

• Code is not like other how-computers-work books. It doesn't have big color illustrations of disk drives with arrows showing how the data sweeps into the computer. Code has no drawings of trains carrying a cargo of zeros and ones. Metaphors and similes are wonderful literary devices but they do nothing but obscure the beauty of technology.

  Charles Petzold

  Book, Technology, Illustration

  Charles Petzold (2000). “Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software”, p.4, Microsoft Press

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• Owning a computer without programming is like having a kitchen and using only the microwave oven

  Charles Petzold

  Kitchen, Computer, Ovens

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• I felt more like a scientist exploring nature, and Windows was my environment. You dont pass judgment on nature; you just explain how it works.

  Charles Petzold

  Environment, Window, Judgment

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• Programming in machine code is like eating with a toothpick

  Charles Petzold

  Machines, Eating, Programming

  Charles Petzold (2000). “Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software”, p.517, Microsoft Press

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• The human species is often amazingly inventive and industrious but at the same time profoundly lazy. It's very clear that we humans don't like to work. This aversion to work is so extreme - and our ingenuity so acute - that we're eager to devote countless hours designing and building devices that might shave a few minutes off our workday

  Charles Petzold

  Design, Lazy, Aversion

  Charles Petzold (2000). “Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software”, p.299, Microsoft Press

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• Free lunches don't come cheap.

  Charles Petzold

  Lunch, Free Lunch

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• Computer monitors can operate in many different video modes. In most cases, the decision about how many pixels and colors to display is yours - but not always.

  Charles Petzold

  Color, Decision, Different

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• NOP stands for (and is pronounced) no op, as in no operation. The NOP causes the processor to do absolutely nothing. What's it good for? Filling space. The 8080 can usually execute a bunch of NOP instructions without anything bad happening

  Charles Petzold

  Space, Causes, Instruction

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• I started out with machine code and assembly language.

  Charles Petzold

  Machines, Language, Assembly

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• In some far-off distant time, when the twentieth century history of primitive computing is just a murky memory, someone is likely to suppose that devices known as logic gates were named after the famous co-founder of Microsoft Corporation

  Charles Petzold

  Memories, Microsoft, Corporations

  Charles Petzold (2000). “Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software”, p.147, Microsoft Press

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• You probably don't have much of a choice.

  Charles Petzold

  Choices

  Charles Petzold (1996). “Programming Windows 95”

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• To a programmer, an operating system is defined by its API.

  Charles Petzold

  Operating Systems, Programmers, Defined

  Charles Petzold (1998). “Programming Windows”, p.35, Pearson Education

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