9 Apr
2025
9 Apr
'25
7:39 p.m.
On 4/8/2025 7:19 PM, Ethan O'Toole via cctalk wrote:
All this talk of ChatGPT caught my interest. Es[ecially the
part about it writing code to actually fulfill a task. So, I asked it
to do some coding. It told me what needed to be done to complete
the task. (I already knew all that!) And spit out a few generic
blocks of code. Not really useful. And in some cases, just like
with google, wrong like suggesting the use of CHARACTER variables in
FORTRAN IV.
I'll continue to play with it but my initial reactions still stand.
No sign of intelligence and not ready for prime-time.
bill
Nay-saying is
always easy. I'd rather hear from smart people who
can tell me whether or how a tool is useful now, as well as how it
might enhance projects in the future.
Why couldn't a present or future AI help you translate from one BASIC
dialect to another, if that's what you want to do? If you want a tool
to do that, how could you help make it possible? How can AI tools
help with disassembly? How might they help you search and understand
and get answers from all the files in your digital packratting?
For the record, my first paying programming job in '81 was translating
between dialects of BASIC.
- John
It possibly could! Try it with ChatGPT and see if it works.
For an example of how bad ass the AI stuff is.... A friend and I are
supposed to supply a bunch of restored pinball and arcades to a bar
restaurant arcade type thing. Vendors are asking around $10,000 for a
change machine that can take credit card payment and dispense tokens.
The people putting the place together asked if machines can be had used.
I tell them, for dollar bills easy but not the modern credit card ones.
Can I make one, they ask. I start digging around looking for info on
those terminals and how transaction setups work for them to judge if it
would be easy to add a subsystem to an older change machine to accept
card payments and dispense tokens. Developer only portals that require
signups, fake sites trying to harvest data and sell you their services,
sigh. Google used to be better.
Hit up ChatGPT. A few specifically asked questions and it craps out
example code for telling the exact terminal I asked about the amount you
wish to charge and picking up status. Very cool, and more than I was
looking for. Confirms that the card info staying on the PCI compliant CC
terminal and never crossing to my system should meet PCI compliance.
Asked it more questions about payment gateways, processors, and is it
possible to share those accounts between popular touchscreen point of
sale terminals. The thing answered a lot and gave a lot of specific
examples of various brands of equipment and if you can share the
accounts. All in like 5 minutes. I could get it to crank out the code
for the end user UI as well as code for arduino to manage communications
to the 90s era change machine easily. It just reduced a bunch of web
searches to 5 minutes with very specific examples. Some risk it could be
wrong, but nothing major.
It's wild, give it a try. ChatGPT is free. Throw it some odd stuff, and
give it quite a bit of detail in your question. I just asked it to write
me code for IMSAI 8080 to bounce LED back and forth and it is cranking
it out with comments in the code. It tells me about the front panel
switches, but if I have a monitor rom it's easier. Asked me if I want
instructions on toggling it in or data for a rom monitor even.
At VCF East someone griped that these GPT things are providing data that
is stolen from other people. Be it the artwork or the code or whatever.
I kind of fail to see the difference in training it on a large data set
versus some kid learning to play piano by playing the Thexder theme or
Arbands books for brass or whatever. We all build on what have learned
from other people's examples.
It's neat.