topbanner_forum
  *

avatar image

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
  • Thursday March 28, 2024, 6:56 am
  • Proudly celebrating 15+ years online.
  • Donate now to become a lifetime supporting member of the site and get a non-expiring license key for all of our programs.
  • donate

Author Topic: C Users Journal Nostalgia  (Read 6242 times)

MilesAhead

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2009
  • **
  • Posts: 7,736
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
C Users Journal Nostalgia
« on: December 02, 2016, 10:20 AM »
From 1990 to 1994 R&D Publications of Lawrence KS published 8 of my articles in their various magazines.  The name of the company was a play on words as the publishers were Robert and Donna Ward.  The best known of the magazines was The C Users Journal which later changed its name to The C/C++ Users Journal once C++ burst on the scene.

Of the 8 articles 4 were published in CUJ and the other 4 scattered across the other magazines.  The hard copies I had are long gone and it has been so long I cannot even remember the titles of the non CUJ articles.  But the reason for this burst of nostalgia is I managed to find 2 more of my CUJ pieces.  The C Users Journal articles are archived online.  I used to have a CDROM with my other articles but it is no more.

In any case if it was not PC Magazine most people were not familiar with these computer magazines.  But now and then I run into an old time C programmer who remembers CUJ.

I could not find any covers from the issues in which my pieces were published but here is a cover shot just to give an idea what the magazine looked like.

CUJ.png

Nothing is as dated as old source code.  As example, one of the articles is titled A Universal C++ Data Type.  I am sure any programming student in the college here would immediately ask me "why didn't you just use the STL?" (standard template library.)  The answer being it was not implemented yet.  I think Borland Turbo C++ came out with an update with the STL included about a year after I wrote the piece.  But even though the code is obsolete the prose is not too bad.  (It was helped by the fact the Editor in Chief reordered the wording in quite a few of the sentences. I tended to use passive voice.)  :)

I usually don't mention my publications to anyone since programming magazines were in effect trade journals and nobody outside of coding circles really cared even back then.  But it was nice to get some positive encouragement while I was studying coding on my own.  Not to mention the publications served to get me work in the industry without previous experience.

I guess when one is of retirement age it is OK to look back at some things.  I only regret my stint as a Software Analyst was so short lived.  20 years of that kind of work would have provided me with a nice nest egg.  :)

The links are pasted in chronological order.  Note that any contact info in the author's bio sections is obsolete.  I no longer live in Massachusetts nor have any of the email accounts mentioned.

Also I am curious if the bookmarks will drag and drop right into the post here or if I will have to format them myself.  :)

Buffering Mouse Events

The Evolution of a Binary Tree in TurboC

A Universal C++ Data Type

Multithreading with OS/2 and Borland C++

(For those curious the links dragged but I had to cut and paste them over the Title text.)

I am glad at least the archives provide some evidence that I did some of the stuff I claim.  People tend to discount most everything you say if you do not have a permanent address.  Strange as it may seem.  :)

xtabber

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2007
  • **
  • Posts: 618
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: C Users Journal Nostalgia
« Reply #1 on: December 02, 2016, 11:51 AM »
I had a subscription to C/C++ Users Journal and thought I had a CD-ROM with all the code from it.  I looked for it after reading your post and couldn't find it, but if it turns up, I'll let you know.

MilesAhead

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2009
  • **
  • Posts: 7,736
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: C Users Journal Nostalgia
« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2016, 12:48 PM »
I had a subscription to C/C++ Users Journal and thought I had a CD-ROM with all the code from it.  I looked for it after reading your post and couldn't find it, but if it turns up, I'll let you know.

Thanks,  Nice to hear from another CUJ enthusiast.  :)
« Last Edit: December 03, 2016, 12:59 PM by MilesAhead, Reason: typos »

cranioscopical

  • Friend of the Site
  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 4,776
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: C Users Journal Nostalgia
« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2016, 04:09 PM »
Nice to see some of your work, Mr. Kelly.  :Thmbsup:

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: C Users Journal Nostalgia
« Reply #4 on: December 03, 2016, 05:15 PM »
Nice!!!!  :up:

MilesAhead

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2009
  • **
  • Posts: 7,736
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: C Users Journal Nostalgia
« Reply #5 on: December 05, 2016, 07:01 AM »
Nice to see some of your work, Mr. Kelly.  :Thmbsup:
-cranioscopical (December 03, 2016, 04:09 PM)


Thank you.  :)

MilesAhead

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2009
  • **
  • Posts: 7,736
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: C Users Journal Nostalgia
« Reply #6 on: December 05, 2016, 07:01 AM »
Nice!!!!  :up:


Thanks Mouser.  :)

MilesAhead

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2009
  • **
  • Posts: 7,736
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: C Users Journal Nostalgia
« Reply #7 on: December 05, 2016, 07:18 AM »
btw in the Online Archive Search some of my articles seem to have been attributed to one Michael A. Kelly.  I am not he.  I am a completely self-taught guy.  GED is the only degree I hold. :)  I just wanted to avoid any confusion.  I don't want to try to notify anyone at the archive as they are unlikely to try to fix it or if they did there's a chance the listings may disappear altogether due to some glitch.

In any case I am most likely the only one doing searches on my name there.  :)

Stoic Joker

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 6,646
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: C Users Journal Nostalgia
« Reply #8 on: December 06, 2016, 06:56 AM »
I am a completely self-taught guy.  GED is the only degree I hold.

Same here. :Thmbsup: ...I think it shows more drive to make it that way than being led by the hand and told what to learn.

MilesAhead

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2009
  • **
  • Posts: 7,736
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: C Users Journal Nostalgia
« Reply #9 on: December 06, 2016, 07:18 AM »
I am a completely self-taught guy.  GED is the only degree I hold.

Same here. :Thmbsup: ...I think it shows more drive to make it that way than being led by the hand and told what to learn.

Heh heh.  I can see some benefit adhering to a syllabus.  But I can tell people have a bit of envy when they encounter the self-taught.  You can choose what to read and focus on.  As example I played around for a few hours trying to write a recursive descent parser in C.  Then I asked myself "do I really need to know how to do this when I could just use Lexx and Yacc?"  Well, maybe if I was going to rewrite those tools.  Otherwise...   ;)

xtabber

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2007
  • **
  • Posts: 618
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: C Users Journal Nostalgia
« Reply #10 on: February 04, 2017, 02:03 PM »
Cleaning out some shelves and found C/C++ Users Journal CD8,  covering January 1990 through December 2004.  Your articles are there, as is the source code for them. I'd be happy to send it to you, if you'd like it.

I also found that I had years ago ripped an ISO image of an even earlier CUG CD, and that, in turn, led to my finding this web site.  I'm amazed that it is still online and (more or less) live.

 

MilesAhead

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2009
  • **
  • Posts: 7,736
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: C Users Journal Nostalgia
« Reply #11 on: February 06, 2017, 06:54 AM »
Cleaning out some shelves and found C/C++ Users Journal CD8,  covering January 1990 through December 2004.  Your articles are there, as is the source code for them. I'd be happy to send it to you, if you'd like it.

That's very cool.  Thank you.  I'll PM you.   :Thmbsup:

I also found that I had years ago ripped an ISO image of an even earlier CUG CD, and that, in turn, led to my finding this web site.  I'm amazed that it is still online and (more or less) live.


Nice find.  I had a couple of things on the CUG.  Nothing much.  But back then any way of doing something common in C was considered worth sharing.  The library wasn't standardized yet. So a lot of the stuff was just mundane like how to copy a file in straight C etc..  But it is interesting the site still functions.  I had that CD too back in the day.