So many stories and so much advice from Dave Plummer - the original creator of task manager and other interesting software like unzip on Microsoft Windows. Did the NSA have a backdoor in Microsoft Windows? Should you learn Rust or GoLang? Learn from someone who has years of development experience! // Dave’s Social // KZfaq: www.youtube.com/@DavesGarage Twitter: twitter.com/davepl1968 LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/davidplummer // Great videos on Dave's channel // Windows Task Manager: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jMtpaLGZm5-UnGQ.html Windows Clock: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jMtpaLGZm5-UnGQ.html Windows Start Menu: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fth0otmk1rC4Y4k.html Windows Zip Folders; kzfaq.info/get/bejne/l7eFp7iCxLKciZ8.html Windows Activation: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fNZ7gal0q6emoGQ.html // Great Playlist on Dave's channel // kzfaq.info/sun/PLF2KJ6Gy3cZ7jCgV1VEAIcr867nCkynPn // David's SOCIAL // Discord: discord.gg/davidbombal Twitter: twitter.com/davidbombal Instagram: instagram.com/davidbombal LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/davidbombal Facebook: facebook.com/davidbombal.co TikTok: tiktok.com/@davidbombal // MY STUFF // www.amazon.com/shop/davidbombal // SPONSORS // Interested in sponsoring my videos? Reach out to my team here: sponsors@davidbombal.com // Menu // 00:00- Coming up 01:01- Dave Plummer's history 02:26- Dave's Garage 03:33- How Dave started at MicroSoft 06:15- Task Manager 10:36- Other Operating Systems 11:06- What OS is Dave coding on? 11:30- How Dave got into coding 13:14- Advice to younger people 14:18- Sell your work, not yourself 15:38- Still coding long after Microsoft 16:22- Visual Zip 18:40- Show your work 19:31- Was it easier in the old days? 21:07- Would you use Rust today? 21:43- Should I learn C? 22:10- What language is Windows written in? 23:14- ZIG and other programming languages 25:05- Start with Python 26:32- Write your code right 27:00- Windows 95 vs NT 30:00- 20-year-old code still in Windows 30:47- Task manager is still the same 31:11- Politics between Win 95 and NT team 31:48- Product Activation 33:42- Loved for task manager; hated for Windows activation 35:05- Open Source 36:00- Who is looking at your code? 37:15- NSA and backdoor access to Windows 38:07- Sneaking code into Windows 38:53- Windows Easter eggs 39:54- Doom on Excel 40:17- Secret messages in MS DOS 40:46- Pinball 43:49- The Start menu 45:08- Calculator and Clock 47:58- Blue screen of death 48:59- Chat GPT 51:01- Chat GPT and bad code 51:30- Plans with your channel 52:27- Meeting Dave in person 52:45- Outro

No way, it’s Dave’s Garage!

Dave is a legend. In the late 90s/early 00s, we used to joke about the initials for Windows CE, ME & NT: "CEMENT".

Dave is a treasure. Discovered his channel a couple years ago with his fire fans code for the ESP32 and the GIM fans. Thanks for sharing.

love the honesty. I'm not as old as Dave, but I've been working as a software engineer for 25 years. It's so true the first version "we don't know" what the code needs to be. You're lucky if you get to the third version. Today it's more common to have moved to some other project and someone else is rewriting it. One reason I love doing open source work, I get to go back and clean things up. When I get to delete code to cleanup/simplify, it feels great.

Programmer since 1970, now retired. I was always working on embedded systems, but like Dave I stuck to the code and avoided several offers to go into management. Started on an IBM 360, but moved to microprocessors as soon as they became available. Started with a 6502, and my last processor was a 256-core AI chip. I also enjoyed custom chip verification before they went to the foundry. I was actually one of the first Commodore 64 users, because they sent me a prototype (called the VIC-40 at the time), so I could write a book on it that went beyond writing aps in BASIC. Fun times.

Great to see you interview Dave, it helps to add another dimension to what we know about him, many thanks hope to see many more great videos from both of you

Man, thank you two. What an awesome interview love both of these channels!🎉

Excellent chat with Dave, I've been following Dave's Garage for the past year or so and it's nice to see you spending some time with him. He reminds me of the type of guy you could sit down with a nice cup of tea and while away the afternoon solving the mysterys of the world together. Absolutely follow Dave's Garage, it's fun and entertaining.

Thank you David for this awesome interview. You even included chat gpt and AI in there, very cool!

This is so my era too. My MCSE was in NT4 too and seen Dave on his channel discussing some of the integral Windows tools in the past. Great guest and collab!

Dave is a great guy and a legend. Like Dave, I've been coding since I bought my first Apple II in 1979. I am 76 now, and have taken on coding in Python. I'm currently working on a game and it is teaching me a lot. Love coding. It keeps your mind young.

Hey David - I just want to say that you produce wonderful content and communicate ideas and thoughts better than most of us in tech. Thanks for this great interview with another incredible human. I really enjoy listening to you both and watching all your videos. I'm a full-stack developer/engineer/coding dude and your content is a great reprieve from work! Keep it up!

The best people to interview about coding adventures you can learn from are absolutely those who like Dave are comfortable telling the story but without omitting the mistakes. Such a wealth of information you can miss out on when those details are glossed over. This was a dope video man. Watching this whileon the cusp of putting my toes in the infosec pool. Helps immensely to guide me a bit or confirm Im taking the right next steps, especially with being a complete unknown in any of these circles. Ive outgrown anonymity anyways, so thesr next steps are crucially important. Thanks man

I love watching Dave's videos. It was a treat to see him interviewed; you asked several great questions that I was interested in. Excellent video, thanks for putting it together!

I just like listening to pretty much anything Dave has to say about programming, life and Microsoft work. It's just enlightening

This brought back a lot of memories. In the 90s I was a software director at Dialogic Corp. (later bought by Intel), known for their invention of corporate voicemail and telephone automated voice response (AVR) systems. Our systems used custom boards in industrial Intel-based chassis under Windows, and later, Linux. I remember when NT came out and what a big deal it was. Thanks, Dave!

Writing a task manager helps one learn internals. Back in '75-'76, writing a view into IBM VS1's job queue, running jobs, and output queue taught me a lot about VS1's internals. Later updated it for MVS and a view into TCAM's internal control blocks. This upset operations when the programmers saw what was or more importantly, why their jobs were sitting in the job queue while other jobs were jumping in ahead of theirs.

I'm not a tech guy but happened upon Dave Plummer's channel, for the love of KZfaq algorithm. I very much enjoyed how he explains history. I had to watch two back to back episodes and subscribed. I also took an interest in all the chat that follows from his viewers. Thank you Dave for sharing.

Thank you @Dave for your contribution to task manager and pinball, those are some things which did had impact on user experience.

Haha...my very first experience with computers was when I was told by my mom I MUST take Computer Class as an elective (she was hoping I'd get into IT, which I was uninterested at the time...bad move on my part). Thus, the very first program that existed I learned with MS DOS which existed LONG before Windows did. Thank you for inventing the Task Manager! Super handy! We've come a long ways from DOS!

Great video collaboration, David! Dave Plummer is truly one of the greatest presenters, able to take a technical subject and help you learn so efficiently and quickly. And his "horror" ("success?") stories from Microsoft are the best! Glad you had him on here! I love to see this type of collaboration among KZfaq tech channels. Also, a note: LOVE how you broke down the timeline exactly. So many channels now don't spend the time to do this simple task and it really helps your watchers. I use the time score all of the time!

One of the best podcasts I've ever watched. The stories are liquid gold! You guys are awesome. 🤣👌

This has been my favorite guest so far. Dave Plummer is one hell of a programmer and an inspiration to so many. Thanks David, you too are a star!

Awesome collaboration! Love this kind of content, great job for both. I was actually worked on the same computer he worked on when I was younger, commodore 64, I used to have that monitor back up until a few years ago, I ended up using to connect my xbox and playstation console. Good job David and Dave 👍👍

So much good advice, soo much history, THANK YOU for this insight, knowledge and time you shared. This is incredibly valuable for ANY of the new generations desiring to get into the real core of the industry and how to make yourself beyond valuable, BUT I would add that Dave's Humbleness and openness here is just absolutely refreshing. again THANK YOU,

I adore Dave. Really good shout, getting him on the channel. One of the greats.

This is wonderful! I love both of your channels!

Unexpected visitor , ❤ Dave , I am a long time subscriber of Dave's Garage ! ❤ed it , Thnx David , for arranging such a wonderful podcast!😊

Two of my favorite channels have collaborated. Big fam of Dave's Garage

Ahhhh, my two favorite tech gurus! Thanks gentlemen.

Awesome content! 2 of my best technical You-Tubers in one video! Great work!

I've been subd to both channels for a little while & love this collaboration! Great video!

Thankyou David and Dave for your hard work bringing us such high quality technical content.

Dave is like your friend's cool dad you just go over to talk with. Two great channels.

I remember Dave from HyperCache on the Amiga. It was an eye opening piece of software for the time. I thoroughly enjoyed this interview, he's a fascinating guy and has a huge mountain of knowledge - thank you.

Dave's KZfaq ads about his book helped me find his channel right as I was getting back into coding. He is a delight (also read his book it's insightful AND funny) I really enjoyed this conversation, David! Thanks for always chatting with interesting people. I can't wait to see who else pops up on here (please have a chat with Shannon Morse thank you)

What a blessing to listen to this legend.

Great interview. Love Dave's Garage.

I can't say how excited I am for this. My two favorite Dave's. David's. Two of my favorite dudes. I love it.

LMAO! Love it! Born in '67, I used to take the bus to the local mall after school and work on code at Radio Shack on their display TRS-80. I'd have to kneel in front of it, no storage, so I keyed my code thus far from a notebook then continue with my project. 3-4 hours later, my dad picked me up on his way home. Most days M-F, and occasional weekends if I caught the busses. One friday evening, approaching Christmas, I was about an hour into my session, in the zone. Suddenly looking up and around, there were probably 20-30 people in a semi-circle behind me watching. If I'd known to arrange an advertising contract... lol

The pinball game brings memories!One of my first experiences with computers exploring the windows operating system!

Love Dave P's channel. Thank you for this interview. I'm a few years older than Dave P and I kinda gave up on programming after C started becoming C++ and then C#. Had my roots in Basic, Fortran and assembler. There was always the next hot language and I could never decide which was the best to learn. Thinking maybe I'll finally go back to one of my books on Python. (Or, maybe I should look at Go again ... ? I STILL can't decide! )

Another great interview David! Love hearing Dave as it reminds me of the days of old and great to reminisce!

Awesome interview and been watching Dave's videos for a while now. Really appreciate awesome video contents you both have been putting up. Very inspirational.

Dave - Been watching Dave's Garage for about 1 year now - love all the history you share of products i myself have been working with since DOS 2.1 - I would love to see you do some videos of writing python code using chat GPT 4 - even if its only something simple like a pong copy

Memories! In the DOS days, I had my own DOS distribution with all the top utilities I used on a daily basis. All the engineers at Shared Micro Systems carried it in their kit. Exciting times.

That was an enjoyable interview. Now I feel truly old. Thanks, Dave. I'm going back to bed now.

Wow. Dave and I got our start the same way. I was 12 in 1977 and fell into my local Radio Shack and became the resident computer geek. Started with a Mod I BASIC then learned Z80 assembly, then worked for a systems house in 1981 which did system extensions for the Mod I and Mod II systems. Even integrated 10MB hard drives via SASI controllers. I too am on the spectrum. The only difference is that I worked for Netscape, not MSFT. 😮 One of my manager's last name was Plummer. 😂

Been watching Dave for a few years now and hes great. His stories are incredible. Also incredibly down to earth.

I also got started on a TRS-80 as a 10 year old. Just like Dave I just started typing, thinking it would "work". What memories. I didn't have a way to store code, so retyped each time I sat down. Dave Plummer, what a guy. Thanks for the stories!

I started writing code way back in 1970, so nice to hear Dave talk about writing in assembler. I remember inserting machine code in Hex, it feels like a million years ago. Watched this guy’s channel he is also a great communicator with a good sense of humour. Loved the video.

Man! I just want to sit and read those books behind David... Wish it's my bookshelf

I don't know much about "the Spectrum" but since finding this guy a few months ago I find such an engaging likeable funny knowledgeable, entertaining person that the thing about those on the Spectrum havening interpersonal seems far fetched. This guy is charming.

Absolutely love that you two are chatting 😮

I thought Snowden settled this (the NSA question) ? Amazing guest David!

Great interview and what an brilliant mind he has. It is amazing how a lot of the code written 20 years ago is still used today.

Long time watcher of you and Dave...excellent shows from both of you.

I was born in 63. My radio shack story is almost identical (I setup their floor model and dang near lived there in my mid teens). Been in IT ever since (senior engineer now)

Phenomenal, exactly what I'm looking for❤

Cool to see these guys get together

Love that David has loads of Windows and msdos box versions in the background 😅. Great video and great to hear Daves stories, a blast from Windows history.

I have been watching Dave's Garage on and off for a while. Some very interesting content. Once thing that I just realised when he was speaking of activation. I recently had some SSD issues, and I had them set to a lower PCIe bandwidth setting (Gen3 instead of Gen4) just to torubleshoot the intermittent issue. Windows was activated just fine, but when I updated the BIOS it switched everything back to Gen4. I like Dave also run a threadripper, but mine has 8 PCIe SSDs, I reconfigured everything else like the PCIe bifurcation, but forgot to set the PCIe gen for the ssds and the slot running 4 drives back to gen 3 forced and it resulted in Windows deactivating itself. All the SSDs were the same, no physical changes to the hardware at all. So I guess I found out that if you change all 8 SSDs at the same time from Gen3 to Gen4, it will be just enough for Windows to deactivate.

it was amazing to see the person who created TASK MANAGER ...... and I would be more happy if we could see PINBALL now....!!! because I loved it and played it a lot when I was still using XP back 2-3 years ago....!!!🙂🙃

The best thing about Dave's videos is his friendly giant opener.

In the "Pinball" chapter, I do understand Dave's appreciation for having his code visible to a lot of people. I'm Dave's age, but got started in software at 14 instead of his 10 years age. Much of my code went into industrial machines and many of those have been scrapped a long time ago. With those machines, a few "users" (machine operators) got to use my GUIs, etc, for 8 hour shifts. The rest of my non-industrial code is mostly in and around radar systems and other neato but esoteric embedded things.

Love these kind of videos

Not only do they have a backdoor for the NSA but Microsoft keeps your encryption keys on their servers just in case the USG ever asks for them. It's all for your convenience in case you forget your keys of course.

Love “Dave’s Garage” I knew he was former MS programmer but didn’t know this whole back story, thanks for this

The finishing of the interview was quite awesome though 🤣🤣!!

BSOD was a constant problem on most Windows Operating Systems, Even when not killing system processes. Also diagnosing BSODs was often hindered by Microsoft's Proprietorization Closed System Architecture. It was this issue that often forced many to reinstall their OS every other year.

Wouldn't it be cool if they had a retro mode Easter egg in Windows? It would have the old interface and all the old games.

Thank You Sir! Taskmanager one of my fav. things on Windows. Always my first goto after a fresh installation.

Back in the 1950s all bags were weighed. There were size go-no-go gages for carry ons. These were a 4 sided frame attached to side of counter. The significance of weight was that smaller airplanes needed to be balanced more finely than a 747. When I flew with parents on a small flying boat, the pilot lined us all up by weight. The heaviest passengers were put in front, and as the smallest I was put all the way in back. Luggage was loaded by weight in front. My understanding is that in the 1930s the tri-motor planes had all the passengers weighed. When I was in college, one of my classmates was an airplane balancer. In the days before computers taking his job, he would take account fuel weight, cargo and baggage weight and estimated

Did Dave ever mentioned TempleOS? I wish he could provide his perspective on that OS in terms of architecture, design etc. It would be awesome to know how a professional OS programmer such as Dave views an OS created by a fully independent developer like Terry. Fun fact, Dave was born in 1968 and Terry just 1 year later.

43:21 I have the Pinball game in my Windows 10 and it works perfect. I also added back the Windows 7 games and they work fine too. Also the Windows Entertainment Pack works in Windows 10 32bit but not in the 64bit version (well not all of them at least). Windows has great backwards comparability.

Great interview with two of my favorite channel hosts!

Nice to see Dave on here! Would love a future episode with Professor Messer

Only thing Task Manager is lacking today is the ability to filter the list of processes by a text string and being able to filter text by a selected column. Always find myself looking for a certain thing and wondering why there is no filter feature.

The issue I observe worldwide and at universities is that kids and young people who begin with Python tend to halt their progress there and never dare to venture into C++, C#, or Java. What I often hear from them is that these languages seem too complex after getting comfortable with Python. We are losing individuals who could truly excel in the art of coding, while simultaneously seeing a rise in those who merely assemble things using pre-existing frameworks and libraries. This raises the question: who will be responsible for developing these frameworks and libraries in the future?

Nice walk down memory lane! As a database developer, my goal was always to make the application bulletproof, namely by preventing the user from doing absolutely anything except for that which was required. It was a DKNF dance between locking down the structure of every table while ensuring the same was done to the menus.

Holy cow it is great listening to Dave Plummer talk about stuff!

Very interesting hear the stories of a old school programmer; guys like Dave helped to create our world.

>NSA backdoors >Windows Pick one (they are literally the same thing)

This is fantastic. Thank you both for making this discussion happen! :)

TRS-80 is the first computer I worked on as well. I remember writing a program to disassemble the ROM into assembler and data. That was so much fun.

Task Manager might still be the same, but I can tell you the TCP/IP stack in Windows is still the same (crap) that 20+ years ago. Edit: Excel had also a Flight Simulator that you could start from inside a cell. Edit 2: Too bad Microsoft didnt include all the tools Mark Russinovich did in the day instead. That would have enhanced Windows by a mile.

Free cookies! Edit: Dave garage & David Bombal This is going to be amazing! I just got into coating not too long ago & David Bombal what is the channel I came across shortly after when it came to"Honestly" just about everything! Primarily network security Dave's garage I stumbled across video about “Secret history of zip folders” and I subscribe from there!

Interesting...🤔 Thank you for the information!

Informative as always 😃

....this is exactly the sort of thing the NSA would want me to believe...

Regarding Python: (1) moving from 3.10 to 3.11 gives a pretty massive speed increase; and (2) A guy (sorry I forgot his name; he was on the Lex Fridman show less than a month ago) well known in the industry has reached alpha version of a new backwards compatible Python side branch called something like ?PyMocha? that runs crazy fast, seriously, in many applications over 1000x faster than Python 3.11.

A great way to get into C is to learn by programming Arduino. Fun way to learn by having tangible feedback - blink an LED, control a stepper motor, make a motion detector.

Wow! Great interview. I started with a Commadore 64 and BASIC. Went to college, 2nd time, toward EE and learned Fortran, then changed to CS and got Pascal, then C/C++. A year later I changed to Computer Engineering and learned a bunch of Hardware Description Languages (VHDL, Verilog, System Verilog, etc.) on top of that, I learned HTML (CSS, JS) and Java. Job wise, Perl was the go to language for scripting (way before Python was introduced). Overall, I think I was good with about 20 languages until I retired. And once you know one of these languages, you can move to another fairly easy by remembering the syntax differences. The question about which language to learn first, or next: I felt stressed at times not knowing which language I should tackle next and put them off (except Python) for that moment in time when I needed to know it. I would suggest picking up the methodology of OOP, because Object Oriented Programming is important for a lot of languages.

Nice

First

I remember how I taught myself assembly. In the back of the User Manual of my newly-bought Sinclair Spectrum was a list of Z80 opcodes, just the assembler codes with no further explanations but luckily some information about the parameters (if any). And I wrote my first machine-code program with that information!

OMG this is so nostalgic! My Mum and step dad worked for the Canadian government doing mainframes- him and mum heavens knows what she did but we always had the - your - software around the house. This was very late 80s early 90s. I even taught myself some MS-DOSi airways remembered to "Park disk"

If he didnt mention he had asparagus casually i wouldn't even notice. This is such a wonderful brilliant man! ❤

Great interview, thank you!