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How old did you start programming?

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  • E Ernest Laurentin

    Just wondering: how old were you when you start programming? maybe had your first computer? - I started programming when I was 12yrs (w/ VIC-20 and commodore 64)(I still feel young though!) - Programming language: Basic, then..Assembler for Commodore 64

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    Andy Brummer
    wrote on last edited by
    #91

    I was 10 when my parents got me a 16K Radio Shack color computer and a few books on basic. I had to beg them for the tape recorder so I could save programs.

    Using the GridView is like trying to explain to someone else how to move a third person's hands in order to tie your shoelaces for you. -Chris Maunder

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    • E Ernest Laurentin

      Just wondering: how old were you when you start programming? maybe had your first computer? - I started programming when I was 12yrs (w/ VIC-20 and commodore 64)(I still feel young though!) - Programming language: Basic, then..Assembler for Commodore 64

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      Hoverbored
      wrote on last edited by
      #92

      Was about 16-17 (Jr in HS)in '73-'74. We had a teletype terminal, you had to dial the school district office, then put the phone in the 'ear cups' on the side of the terminal. We were programming in BASIC (computing orbits for Physics!). Things weren't much improved 2-3yrs later in college. I went to a commuter school, and folks 'gave me the phone lines' after 9pm to dial back to school for my Fortran homework (on my TRS-80 M:I w, Cat Novation modem! 300bps). Can you whistle at 300bps? ;-)

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      • E Ernest Laurentin

        Just wondering: how old were you when you start programming? maybe had your first computer? - I started programming when I was 12yrs (w/ VIC-20 and commodore 64)(I still feel young though!) - Programming language: Basic, then..Assembler for Commodore 64

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        Jason J Neigh
        wrote on last edited by
        #93

        4th Grade (9 yoa). TI 99/4a w/ "Audio" Tape Drive (Christmas Present). BASIC. (as if there was a choice for it.) :-D

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        • E Ernest Laurentin

          Just wondering: how old were you when you start programming? maybe had your first computer? - I started programming when I was 12yrs (w/ VIC-20 and commodore 64)(I still feel young though!) - Programming language: Basic, then..Assembler for Commodore 64

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          Geoff Gariepy
          wrote on last edited by
          #94

          First saw a personal computer in a Radio Shack store somewhere around 1978-79. First got to use a computer when I started high school in 1981 -- Commodore PET. I was 13 that year. :laugh: First owned a VIC-20 around 1982. 3KB of RAM, cassette tape mass storage, and I was really living! I learned BASIC on this machine and the PETs at school. We had old teletype machines at school we used for printers. Noisy! First owned a Commodore 64 in ~1984. I remember paying $200 for it, using money I earned painting a basement. My parents gave me the 1541 Floppy drive for Christmas. (The VIC and the C-64 are still boxed up in the original boxes in my basement!) Learned Pascal (KMMM) and 650x assembly on this machine. Believe it or not, I didn't actually get a PC-compatible machine (a used 386) until 1994 or so. I had been working as a sysadmin for several years at that point and couldn't afford a new machine. In between the C-64 and my 386, I had an Amiga 1000, which I used all through college. What a ride it's been! :)

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          • E Ernest Laurentin

            Just wondering: how old were you when you start programming? maybe had your first computer? - I started programming when I was 12yrs (w/ VIC-20 and commodore 64)(I still feel young though!) - Programming language: Basic, then..Assembler for Commodore 64

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            JHubSharp
            wrote on last edited by
            #95

            I was around 4 or 5 when I started poking with my dad's old C-64. Thought it was the coolest thing ever to "give" my sister a screen that repeated "Happy birthday" over and over until I hit the break button. I went to QBasic in my teens and HTML in high school. I didn't ever really get back into coding (other than the very occasional JavaScript) until college, though.

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            • E Ernest Laurentin

              Just wondering: how old were you when you start programming? maybe had your first computer? - I started programming when I was 12yrs (w/ VIC-20 and commodore 64)(I still feel young though!) - Programming language: Basic, then..Assembler for Commodore 64

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              sampyxis
              wrote on last edited by
              #96

              For me, 13 yrs old - Vic 20 / then a Commodore 64 - loved it - basic, machine language - wrote games. I also wrote a few articles for various magazines before I was 16 - it was a great time ;-)

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              • E Ernest Laurentin

                cool! Same for me. BASIC got me hooked first.

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                msimas73
                wrote on last edited by
                #97

                I was 13 years old when I got a MSX 8 bit computer for Christmas (64kb of RAM with a cassette tape player, all hooked up to a TV - these were very popular in Brazil at the time)). I also got an Apple IIe programming book (there were no books out for MSX yet :-)) and that's how it all started...

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                • L Lost User

                  I started about 13 I guess - first using BBC Basic at school and then on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. :)


                  Kicking squealing Gucci little piggy.
                  The Rob Blog

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                  Wasureru
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #98

                  Rob Caldecott wrote:

                  I started about 13 I guess - first using BBC Basic at school and then on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

                  I started with a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, now that i think time is passing really quickly... oh no! I'm getting old! Started at age of 10 but didn't learn much at that time :P but it was enough for me to nag my mom for a full year for her to give me a computer xD

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                  • E Ernest Laurentin

                    Just wondering: how old were you when you start programming? maybe had your first computer? - I started programming when I was 12yrs (w/ VIC-20 and commodore 64)(I still feel young though!) - Programming language: Basic, then..Assembler for Commodore 64

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                    Lilith C
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #99

                    I was relatively old by comparison, maybe 26. My first computer was an Altair 8800 that I assembled from a kit. I mostly did assembly language because basic or any other language I had available for it was unable to do graphics very well. Eventually I moved on to the C-128 where I did assembly language programming for the CP/M side. Lilith

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                    • E Ernest Laurentin

                      Just wondering: how old were you when you start programming? maybe had your first computer? - I started programming when I was 12yrs (w/ VIC-20 and commodore 64)(I still feel young though!) - Programming language: Basic, then..Assembler for Commodore 64

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                      oldfrog
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #100

                      I was 35. started with a heathkit h88. 128 k ram. casset tape drive for storage. Used asm until i could come up with the money to buy the basic casset. But I still don't know how to program. I just make it up as I go along. :-)

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                      • E Ernest Laurentin

                        cool! Same for me. BASIC got me hooked first.

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                        BoredCoder
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #101

                        Ernest Laurentin wrote:

                        cool! Same for me. BASIC got me hooked first.

                        You mean there are OTHER languages to program in? :-D

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                        • E Ernest Laurentin

                          Just wondering: how old were you when you start programming? maybe had your first computer? - I started programming when I was 12yrs (w/ VIC-20 and commodore 64)(I still feel young though!) - Programming language: Basic, then..Assembler for Commodore 64

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                          robj98021
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #102

                          I was 12, and had a Sinclair ZX81 with the 16K add on module. Nothing beats the speed and reliability of magnetic tape storage ;)

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                          • E Ernest Laurentin

                            Just wondering: how old were you when you start programming? maybe had your first computer? - I started programming when I was 12yrs (w/ VIC-20 and commodore 64)(I still feel young though!) - Programming language: Basic, then..Assembler for Commodore 64

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                            TCHamilton
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #103

                            How about FORTRAN IV on an IBM 360/85 then DEC 11/45 and 11/70's (networked!). Then on to PC's with HP 9845B with no drives - only cassette port, the IBM PC with 2 floppy drives and no HDD, the IBM PC/XT (using AboveBoard for the extra 128k then extra 360 to get up to 1Mb of RAM). In the early 80's programming in DBase II, R:Base 4000 and Supercalc, Visicalc, Lotus 1a, Symphony, Quattro Pro. Documented with WordStar, DisplayWrite, MultiMate and early WordPerfect. Finally on to Turbo C, Turbo Assembler Turbo Pascal (I miss Borland). Here we are with Office 2007, DOT.net and some tremendous tools - I've really enjoyed the ride so far. Life is really good. I wonder just where we'll be in the next 25 years:cool:

                            Tom Hamilton/Intel Folsom

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                            • R Ravi Bhavnani

                              Joe Q wrote:

                              That's a step up from the frist IBM-PCs. 1.44 MHz,

                              Actually the first IBM PC had a 4.77 MHz CPU, 64K RAM and no hard disk. This was followed by the XT which came with a 10Mb hard disk, and then the AT (6MHz CPU, max 20Mb hard disk). And we all know what happened after that... :) /ravi

                              My new year's resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Music | Articles | Freeware | Trips ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

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                              JLengi
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #104

                              Yup, I started with the original 4.77 MHz IBM PC. No hard disk, just 5-inch floppies. First programming language: Basic. When we got a modem, it was a whopping 300 bps. (We bypassed the 110 bps acoustic couplers.) The comm software was written in basic. And FIDONET was probably more widely used than the Internet.

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                              • E Ernest Laurentin

                                Just wondering: how old were you when you start programming? maybe had your first computer? - I started programming when I was 12yrs (w/ VIC-20 and commodore 64)(I still feel young though!) - Programming language: Basic, then..Assembler for Commodore 64

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                                Jeremy T Fuller
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #105

                                I was actually 8 years old, splitting my time between a TRS-80 and an Intel 8086 (4.77 Mhz) using, like everyone else, BASIC on both systems. Boy things have changed since then.

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                                • E Ernest Laurentin

                                  Just wondering: how old were you when you start programming? maybe had your first computer? - I started programming when I was 12yrs (w/ VIC-20 and commodore 64)(I still feel young though!) - Programming language: Basic, then..Assembler for Commodore 64

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                                  CodeAddiction
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #106

                                  As probably many did, I screwed around with QBASIC and DOS command "programs" when I was really young. Then, when I was around 14 or so, we got a computer with Windows 95 on it. I think I really started programming shortly after that, like the summer of '96 when school was out and I was at home, bored, Windows 95 was new, the internet was begining to boom, and I was screwing around with AOL. I would see people use programs in it to automate things in AOL (room busters, punters, mass mailers, etc). I had no idea that one program could control another like that and it really sparked my interest as to how it could do that. Looking into it further really started my interest in programming. Learning about windows messaging and the API routines that were being used by simple Visual Basic applications to do all that.

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                                  • E Ernest Laurentin

                                    Just wondering: how old were you when you start programming? maybe had your first computer? - I started programming when I was 12yrs (w/ VIC-20 and commodore 64)(I still feel young though!) - Programming language: Basic, then..Assembler for Commodore 64

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                                    ednrgc
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #107

                                    Atari 800XL, using BasicXL. Learned the machine in and out, and started programming games.

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                                    • E Ernest Laurentin

                                      Just wondering: how old were you when you start programming? maybe had your first computer? - I started programming when I was 12yrs (w/ VIC-20 and commodore 64)(I still feel young though!) - Programming language: Basic, then..Assembler for Commodore 64

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                                      tlw1145
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #108

                                      Bunch of children! Digital Equipment Corporation PDP 11/40 / Assembler - had 64 kB memory and 128 kb (yes Bytes) hard drive. and IBM 360 / Fortran and others (1973)

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                                      • E Ernest Laurentin

                                        Just wondering: how old were you when you start programming? maybe had your first computer? - I started programming when I was 12yrs (w/ VIC-20 and commodore 64)(I still feel young though!) - Programming language: Basic, then..Assembler for Commodore 64

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                                        Private_Void
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #109

                                        I started programming at 6 on a commadore 64. I was so young I think it was BASIC , but the syntax (barely can remember) was something like, FOR I=1 TO 5 PRINT I NEXT -> 1 2 3 4 5.

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                                        • E Ernest Laurentin

                                          Just wondering: how old were you when you start programming? maybe had your first computer? - I started programming when I was 12yrs (w/ VIC-20 and commodore 64)(I still feel young though!) - Programming language: Basic, then..Assembler for Commodore 64

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                                          maxblitz
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #110

                                          I was 17. My father hired me to write a Basic program to help him chart commodity prices. It was an IBM PC XT (I believe). Basic had line numbers and was not yet structured. I think the CPU was a smokin' hot 4 MHZ and the disk drive held a whopping "10 million pieces of information!" (bytes). -- Mark W:omg:

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