More than 30 years ago I have used my HP41 to do the day work. Today there are several emulators for this very useful machine. So I have installed an emulator on nearly every device that I own. A stupid calculation that must often be done is to get the date and time based on a given Unix time. Unix time is given in seconds since 1.1.1970.
The calculation is easy done with a small HP41 program. If a CCD module or CCD OSX is installed (and a time module or the emulation of a HP41CX) only some lines of code are needed.
Here it is, a printout of a very simple program, that makes the job. Enter the Unix timestamp and run the program to get the real date and time.
Today we are working on programs with million lines of code. Even simple programs often contain several thousand lines of code. Writing such a small program within minutes that makes a simple job without any gimmicks is sometimes more fun than creating big software systems. Last time I have written a program for my original HP41 is more than 25 years ago. It’s like riding a bike, learned once, never forgotten.