As is tradition (well, I’ve decided that it’s my tradition), I’m doing #AdventOfCode on older hardware. I’m also a bit of a Windows 2000 fan, because … I don’t know why, weird irrational nostalgia, I guess. Either way, I’d like to do some Win2k thingie for AoC this year.

The minimum system requirements are a Pentium 133 and 32-64 MB of RAM. That’s pretty much exactly what I have. So, let’s try to install it.

The installation took well over an hour, but once it’s done, it’s actually quite usable. Here’s a video of the boot process (just takes about a minute) and a bit of web browsing:

https://movq.de/v/5dbc55dbaa/MVI_9356.MOV.mp4

It’s also the first time that I saw this screen (see below). Windows can’t power off the PC by itself, I have to push the button. I only knew similar screens from Win9x.

I don’t know yet which programming language I’ll use. Maybe Visual Basic? 🤪

#retrocomputing

#adventofcode 2015 in C, day 9.

We have to solve the traveling salesman problem. How hard could it be?

In this first part, I lay down the groundwork and, this time, do the parsing of the puzzle input earlier in the process. We'll see if that helps!

https://notes.adfoucart.be/aocode15/day9.html

Another interlude to my (fascinating I'm sure) #adventofcode 2015 in C narrated solutions to take stock of what I've learned so far.

In short:

1. Read the docs
2. Object-oriented C is fun!

https://notes.adfoucart.be/aocode15/interlude2.html

#adventofcode 2015 in C.

Day 8 is a parsing puzzle. After my painful slog through day 7, this one was quick. Not particularly happy with how the code looks, but I don't think refactoring this one will lead to something super interesting.

https://notes.adfoucart.be/aocode15/day8.html

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@sudorandom/116220758901465126

I was using spreadsheets to solve coding challenges for #adventofcode
It was definitely the worst way to do it but I had no other resources available.

#adventofcode 2015 in C. Finally solved day 7, after less refactoring than I feared. And the second part of the puzzle fortunately didn't require too much change.

I keep getting tripped up by the behaviour of the standard library functions, which almost always have something counter-intuitive (to me) going on. This is easily solved by reading the docs, of course, but I have the bad habit of trying things out first, then coming back to check the docs if it doesn't work out. Works well enough with Python, not so much in C!

https://notes.adfoucart.be/aocode15/day7_part4.html

#adventofcode 2015 in C, still on day 7.

I get very close to finally starting to solve the puzzle, but then I realize that I made a big design mistake in my prep work, and that some more refactoring will be needed.

So this is part 3, and still no star. I'm pretty sure I know what to do next, though. We'll see.

https://notes.adfoucart.be/aocode15/day7_part3.html

Part 2 and still no solution to #adventofcode 2015 in C, day 7.

We're almost there, but I still need to parse the input, and parsing is usually not my favourite part in C... (I mean, not so much in Python either, but it's less painful!)

https://notes.adfoucart.be/aocode15/day7_part2.html

#adventofcode 2015 in C, day 7.

Part 1: this require a fair amount of setup before we can attempt a solution. We are making a network of wires and gates, and I'd like to make sure that I can mesh things together properly before I start parsing the input. So this doesn't solve part 1 yet. Hopefully soon?

https://notes.adfoucart.be/aocode15/day7.html

Note to self: (int) id % 10 is not the same thing as (int) (id % 10)

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#AdventOfCode