The First Program You Ever Wrote
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just thinking back between to the first time, and the very first program ever that i ever "wrote" was a DOS "application" [yes, it was called an application] that had to calculate tax [@ 14%]on any price you input. ANY price. ;P > Enter price: 10.00 Tax = 1.14 Total Price = 11.40 and it was sooo cool! nevermind it took me the best of three hours to write with borland c++ :D [and i copied half of it anyway cos i just didn't get what all the ;'s were doing there] the journey from that day to now... well, let's just say things are a little different- but programming still remains sooo cool. anyhoooo.. i was wondering just where/how did most programmers start out with their first ever "application"?
:: have the courage to use your own reason
My first 'application' was written on mark sense cards, in a pseudo-language... and I don't remember the name of it... (circa... 1980) In college (1982), we were asked to write an application in this 'language' that read in a deck of cards (number unknown) and print them in reverse order... the only way to complete the application was to have the program modify itself to change the index operator from 'add 1' to 'subtract 1'... I miss applications that can modify themselves... Tim
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just thinking back between to the first time, and the very first program ever that i ever "wrote" was a DOS "application" [yes, it was called an application] that had to calculate tax [@ 14%]on any price you input. ANY price. ;P > Enter price: 10.00 Tax = 1.14 Total Price = 11.40 and it was sooo cool! nevermind it took me the best of three hours to write with borland c++ :D [and i copied half of it anyway cos i just didn't get what all the ;'s were doing there] the journey from that day to now... well, let's just say things are a little different- but programming still remains sooo cool. anyhoooo.. i was wondering just where/how did most programmers start out with their first ever "application"?
:: have the courage to use your own reason
My first wasn't really an application; today we'd call it a driver. My first computer didn't have any I/O, so I designed and built an interface card. Then I needed something to allow it to work, so I had to write the code to make the computer check it periodically for the presence of a data byte and do something with the data.
"...a photo album is like Life, but flat and stuck to pages." - Shog9
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On the Tandy TRS80 my dad recovered from a skip when his University was having a clearout - I think it was something along the lines of: 10 PRINT "HELLO RICHARD" 20 GOTO 10 Then (with lots of help from my Dad) we made some kind of snow program, with white asterisks falling down the screen. The TRS80 was incredibly limited to what you could actually do - it had no graphics, just upper case characters and punctuation.
-- Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Buzzwords!
From what I remember, the TRS-80 had a very crude form of "graphics". While it really always stayed in text mode, 64 characters in the character set were special 3 high by 2 wide pixel characters. This allowed setting monochrome pixels on the screen (as long as they didn't overlap with where you wanted to put text). I think the text display was 80 by 24, which allowed for an effective graphics resolution of 160 by 72. I remember an early game called 'Android Nim' which used the crude graphics to display animation of Android characters which were destroyed as part of playing the game. The game itself was very simple, but it was fun to see animation on a TRS-80. I think that the source was printed in some magazine of the time (the late 70's). At the time, I had an Exidy Sorceror computer (another Z-80 based computer which also had Basic available). It didn't have the TRS-80 character set for graphics, but it did have a programmable character set (you could poke data into the character set for the top 128 characters). I ported a number of TRS-80 games to the Exidy (including Android Nim) by setting up the programmable characters with a character set similar to the TRS-80.
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just thinking back between to the first time, and the very first program ever that i ever "wrote" was a DOS "application" [yes, it was called an application] that had to calculate tax [@ 14%]on any price you input. ANY price. ;P > Enter price: 10.00 Tax = 1.14 Total Price = 11.40 and it was sooo cool! nevermind it took me the best of three hours to write with borland c++ :D [and i copied half of it anyway cos i just didn't get what all the ;'s were doing there] the journey from that day to now... well, let's just say things are a little different- but programming still remains sooo cool. anyhoooo.. i was wondering just where/how did most programmers start out with their first ever "application"?
:: have the courage to use your own reason
The first real (i.e. useful) program I wrote was at University. It was written in FORTRAN and processed data from a spectrometer for one of my projects. I forget the actual purpose of the project, but do remember finding programming more enjoyable than the physics I was meant to be doing! Even so, it took me 14 years to get around to doing more programming, when I finally embarked on the Computer Science course that led to my current career.
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just thinking back between to the first time, and the very first program ever that i ever "wrote" was a DOS "application" [yes, it was called an application] that had to calculate tax [@ 14%]on any price you input. ANY price. ;P > Enter price: 10.00 Tax = 1.14 Total Price = 11.40 and it was sooo cool! nevermind it took me the best of three hours to write with borland c++ :D [and i copied half of it anyway cos i just didn't get what all the ;'s were doing there] the journey from that day to now... well, let's just say things are a little different- but programming still remains sooo cool. anyhoooo.. i was wondering just where/how did most programmers start out with their first ever "application"?
:: have the courage to use your own reason
homegrown wrote:
i was wondering just where/how did most programmers start out with their first ever "application"?
depends on how you define my first application. I modified a text only game on a TRS-80 Model I that was bombing Russia (cold war). I added graphics (radar screen) so that you could see targets, enemies, and approaching missiles trying to take you out. My first program written from the ground up was a polar coordinate mapping program of spider webs, choose center of screen, weave web until reaches a wall.... It was just learning the graphics system of my new computer I bought for myself in High School.
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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I'm sure I used to do something like PRINT "Hello ", or something else at the end of the line which resulted in the output going all over the screen rather than a column down the left. If I had more time, I put a loop in there and changed the foreground and background colours too!
Regards, Ray
Ahh yes, its all coming back to me. INK and PAPER. sooo self explanatory!!! so now we can have something a bit more colourful like this:
10 RANDOMIZE 1 20 CLS 30 PAPER INT (RND*7) : INK INT(RND*7) 40 PRINT "MY brother smells "; 45 POKE 23692,255 50 GOTO 30I changed the text to something I would have more likely output at the tender age of 8 or 9 when I got my speccy! ok so I admit I can't remember my ZX spectrum BASIC this well. I found a manual hingy on the web.... http://www.1000bit.net/support/manuali/zxspectrum/contents.htm[^] -
homegrown wrote:
i was wondering just where/how did most programmers start out with their first ever "application"?
depends on how you define my first application. I modified a text only game on a TRS-80 Model I that was bombing Russia (cold war). I added graphics (radar screen) so that you could see targets, enemies, and approaching missiles trying to take you out. My first program written from the ground up was a polar coordinate mapping program of spider webs, choose center of screen, weave web until reaches a wall.... It was just learning the graphics system of my new computer I bought for myself in High School.
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
depends on how you define my first application.
your first application would be any software program that was designed to perform a specific task. i;m not sure if the definition cateres for quality though [ie. did it actually work and how well? :)] nonetheless, for a first app... not bad
:: have the courage to use your own reason
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just thinking back between to the first time, and the very first program ever that i ever "wrote" was a DOS "application" [yes, it was called an application] that had to calculate tax [@ 14%]on any price you input. ANY price. ;P > Enter price: 10.00 Tax = 1.14 Total Price = 11.40 and it was sooo cool! nevermind it took me the best of three hours to write with borland c++ :D [and i copied half of it anyway cos i just didn't get what all the ;'s were doing there] the journey from that day to now... well, let's just say things are a little different- but programming still remains sooo cool. anyhoooo.. i was wondering just where/how did most programmers start out with their first ever "application"?
:: have the courage to use your own reason
homegrown wrote:
and the very first program ever that i ever "wrote" was a DOS "application" [yes, it was called an application] that had to calculate tax [@ 14%]on any price you input. ANY price.
I had to write the EXACT same program. Except I had to do it in Pascal (back in '95) :~ I still have it somewhere I think... It didn't have any procedures or functions. It was just one loooong block of code. Well, it seemed long back then it's probably only a few lines but I remember I had to (Gasp) scroll down to get to the bottom of the code.
Capital Punishment means never having to say "you again?" As easy as 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169
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Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
depends on how you define my first application.
your first application would be any software program that was designed to perform a specific task. i;m not sure if the definition cateres for quality though [ie. did it actually work and how well? :)] nonetheless, for a first app... not bad
:: have the courage to use your own reason
homegrown wrote:
did it actually work and how well?
I made the game "look" incredible compared to before. But we offered it back to the company that made it, the author pressed that any modifications to his code belonged to him, it was our first example of software legal battles, and we were in 9th grade. We had a team, I taught the others programming and we all through around "could you do this" and I did it. The game looked great, played great, the legal battle was short, we gave up the code, I never modified another program, and almost didn't go into programming... I just missed it so much when I wasn't programming, I saved up enough to buy my own a couple years later.
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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homegrown wrote:
and the very first program ever that i ever "wrote" was a DOS "application" [yes, it was called an application] that had to calculate tax [@ 14%]on any price you input. ANY price.
I had to write the EXACT same program. Except I had to do it in Pascal (back in '95) :~ I still have it somewhere I think... It didn't have any procedures or functions. It was just one loooong block of code. Well, it seemed long back then it's probably only a few lines but I remember I had to (Gasp) scroll down to get to the bottom of the code.
Capital Punishment means never having to say "you again?" As easy as 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169
Nic Rowan wrote:
I had to write the EXACT same program
what are the odds? must have been the choice of the decade back then.. '96 for me. :laugh: our lecturer was inot his GIS C++ stuff back then.. so pascal was out but i remember a few "geeks" in the class room complaining becos c++ wasn't as friendly as the pascal they were used to... of course.. i had NO clude as to what they were talking about..
:: have the courage to use your own reason
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Yep, something with POKE 53280,X and POKE 53281,X on the C64 if I recall correct. ;)
Arjan
Arjan Schouten wrote:
Yep, something with POKE 53280,X and POKE 53281,X on the C64 if I recall correct.
Yup :). Those numbers sound awfully familiar
Ryan
"Punctuality is only a virtue for those who aren't smart enough to think of good excuses for being late" John Nichol "Point Of Impact"
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homegrown wrote:
did it actually work and how well?
I made the game "look" incredible compared to before. But we offered it back to the company that made it, the author pressed that any modifications to his code belonged to him, it was our first example of software legal battles, and we were in 9th grade. We had a team, I taught the others programming and we all through around "could you do this" and I did it. The game looked great, played great, the legal battle was short, we gave up the code, I never modified another program, and almost didn't go into programming... I just missed it so much when I wasn't programming, I saved up enough to buy my own a couple years later.
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
it was our first example of software legal battles, and we were in 9th grade
taking on the heavies from an early age then, heh ;) maybe that kind of thing [software legal wrangles] should be included as part of programming certification ? ...
:: have the courage to use your own reason
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Can't remember, to many years ago, but it was in Comal 80.
--------------------------- 127.0.0.1 - Sweet 127.0.0.1
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Arjan Schouten wrote:
Yep, something with POKE 53280,X and POKE 53281,X on the C64 if I recall correct.
Yup :). Those numbers sound awfully familiar
Ryan
"Punctuality is only a virtue for those who aren't smart enough to think of good excuses for being late" John Nichol "Point Of Impact"
are we still talking about programming and languages? :-D although, i guess if you had to actually listen to programmers talk they would sound like trippin' rappers .. ? but i'm glad some things have changed...
:: have the courage to use your own reason
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Well my first program shows my families attitude & mentality to life. It was aptly named: Kill Donkey. Thinking back it was like a very simple Tamagotchi, the donkey was born, you fed it, you killed it, you ate it. :rolleyes:
Formula 1 - Short for "F1 Racing" - named after the standard "help" key in Windows, it's a sport where participants desperately search through software help files trying to find actual documentation. It's tedious and somewhat cruel, most matches ending in a draw as no participant is able to find anything helpful. - Shog9 Ed
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Anders Molin wrote:
ut, I got a ZX81 back in 1981 ;) I still remember when I unpacked it and looked at the keyboard, and wondered about what all that "run", "goto" and other stuff did.
Recently I used a ZX81 emulator coded in JavaScript (:omg:) and I was shocked that I still remember most of those keyboard commands (on the "K" cursor state): "J" for "LOAD", "L" for "LET", and so on.
I don't see dead pixels anymore... Yes, even I am blogging now!
in terms of which is more shocking..i think it's gonna be a photo finish between
Daniel Turini wrote:
Recently I used a ZX81 emulator coded in JavaScript
and
Daniel Turini wrote:
I still remember most of those keyboard commands
:: have the courage to use your own reason
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just thinking back between to the first time, and the very first program ever that i ever "wrote" was a DOS "application" [yes, it was called an application] that had to calculate tax [@ 14%]on any price you input. ANY price. ;P > Enter price: 10.00 Tax = 1.14 Total Price = 11.40 and it was sooo cool! nevermind it took me the best of three hours to write with borland c++ :D [and i copied half of it anyway cos i just didn't get what all the ;'s were doing there] the journey from that day to now... well, let's just say things are a little different- but programming still remains sooo cool. anyhoooo.. i was wondering just where/how did most programmers start out with their first ever "application"?
:: have the courage to use your own reason
The first program I remember writing, was a BASIC game for the 48k Oric. I called it "Bug Man Boris" and the idea was to control a bug-catcher (Boris) and catch a bug that was randomly moving about the screen. As soon as it was caught, another one would appear and the time limit allowed to catch the bug was decreased. The best part about it was the User-Defined Graphics (UDGs), that you could create by manipulating the memory locations that held the character font. Each character was 8x8 pixels, so you could just "poke" new binary values into the right memory locations. It taught me everything I know about binary :cool: I submitted the game to an Oric-User magazine, and they rejected it. I was very disappointed at the time, but my disappointment turned to understanding when the magazine published its final issue the following month.
The StartPage Randomizer | The Timelapse Project | A Random Web Page
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Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
it was our first example of software legal battles, and we were in 9th grade
taking on the heavies from an early age then, heh ;) maybe that kind of thing [software legal wrangles] should be included as part of programming certification ? ...
:: have the courage to use your own reason
homegrown wrote:
taking on the heavies from an early age then, heh
Loosing to the heavies at an early age... We were young and inexperienced in what to do about things like that, especially when companies throw around threats. And the author was extremely angry and wanted our code with a cease and disist order to change any of his code in the future. He was furious that we had "changed it". I thought it looked 10 times better, and perhaps he did too -- I could imagine that would be infuriating that a couple of teenagers that taught themselves programming from a TRS-80 basic manual had mad a highly detailed graphics version of his game. Or perhaps he really did think we ruined it. It almost discouraged me from programming again... it did for a while... but I found I actually missed it, not doing it for over a year, so I saved for my own computer, and wrote everything from scratch after that. :)
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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homegrown wrote:
taking on the heavies from an early age then, heh
Loosing to the heavies at an early age... We were young and inexperienced in what to do about things like that, especially when companies throw around threats. And the author was extremely angry and wanted our code with a cease and disist order to change any of his code in the future. He was furious that we had "changed it". I thought it looked 10 times better, and perhaps he did too -- I could imagine that would be infuriating that a couple of teenagers that taught themselves programming from a TRS-80 basic manual had mad a highly detailed graphics version of his game. Or perhaps he really did think we ruined it. It almost discouraged me from programming again... it did for a while... but I found I actually missed it, not doing it for over a year, so I saved for my own computer, and wrote everything from scratch after that. :)
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
funny story.. i guess how *dare* a couple of kids improve professional code.. :) btw: can u remember how you got hold of the source code? cos then clearly modifying it was "ok" [assuming obtained *legally*?] ah well, long ago.. but what is interesting is
Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
It almost discouraged me from programming again
u glad u went ahead anyway and still at it after all that's gone and done?
:: have the courage to use your own reason
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The first program I remember writing, was a BASIC game for the 48k Oric. I called it "Bug Man Boris" and the idea was to control a bug-catcher (Boris) and catch a bug that was randomly moving about the screen. As soon as it was caught, another one would appear and the time limit allowed to catch the bug was decreased. The best part about it was the User-Defined Graphics (UDGs), that you could create by manipulating the memory locations that held the character font. Each character was 8x8 pixels, so you could just "poke" new binary values into the right memory locations. It taught me everything I know about binary :cool: I submitted the game to an Oric-User magazine, and they rejected it. I was very disappointed at the time, but my disappointment turned to understanding when the magazine published its final issue the following month.
The StartPage Randomizer | The Timelapse Project | A Random Web Page
the game sounds prophetic in terms of a software development lifecycle :) but it does seem that from the beginning, programming has inherited a legacy of some really odd sounding names [including other posts too]: Oric? could easily be a character in a sci-fi novel and Oric raverses the wilderness in his trusty UDG in search of evil *somethings* ...
:: have the courage to use your own reason