>>The even larger masterpiece was the work done for 6502 and its cousins, with just three 8-bit registers and some minimal instruction set. How did they ever write code for that, it must have been horrible.
Horrible... or disciplined? On arrival in VFP I was astonished that RETURN could be permitted from inside IF constructs and loops. It certainly made things easier- and almost made up for absence of GOTO. ;-)
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1