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  3. How old did you start programming?

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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    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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                  • D dlgussin

                    I was 9 years old and started programming Basic on a TRS-80 model 1. I think that dates me!

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                    Dan Neely
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #111

                    I started with a trash80-color at around the same age. Didn't really go beyond ascii art generation until 5 or 6 years later in highschool with turbopascal.

                    -- Rules of thumb should not be taken for the whole hand.

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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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                      kurious
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #112

                      1980: I was 7, programming in Advanced Basic (basica on the PC). Moved on to Pascal, then C and x86 ASM, then Java, Bash, Perl and now Python. I still work heavily with Python, Java, C, and ASM. Matthew Carpenter

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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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                        destynova
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #113

                        Ernest Laurentin wrote:

                        - 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

                        Hey, I started on a C64 too, when I was 8 or 9 - only with Basic though. Sure it was right there as soon as you booted the thing up. What an awful implementation it was, though... a slow, unresponsive interface, hardly any language flexibility, and weren't variable names only differentiated by the first two characters? Anyway, I didn't get too far with that. Not until I got an Atari ST a few years later and got into GFA Basic at some point - even by today's standards quote a nice form, I think. And a really graceful interpreter interface! Then I dabbled a little in C (Sozobon C, the PD compiler... fun) and 68k assembly and kinda stayed around that level until I went to college some years later and started with Java and C++. Fun times!

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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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                          andyb46
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #114

                          April 1976 Fortran on an ICL 3100 using a teletype keyboard with paper feeding through. Ebarrassed when writing a do while loop without incrementing the loop variable causing infinite loop, took three full pages before control c interrupted loop.

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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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                            seggerman
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #115

                            18 - freshman at college Basic on a PDP-11

                            Marianne G. C. Seggerman This above all, to thine own self be true and it follows as the night the day thou canst not then be false to any man.

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                            • M Mark Salsbery

                              :laugh: Youngster ;P

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                              TheLioness22
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #116

                              You think that's a Youngster?? I started programming at about 13 using VB 6.0 - Now that makes me the youngster... -Leona

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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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                                tarrc
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #117

                                Huh, I started on something like the IBM 5155, 10 Meg harddrive on an IDE card. Two 5 1/4 floppies and it ran DOS 3.2 I think. No mouse, no USB, just a cool green screen and a parallel printer port. :omg:

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                                • J JLengi

                                  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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                                  CoolBreeze812
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #118

                                  300 bps modems and FIDONET...Oh the memories...the simpler times.:)

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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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                                    SR Methos
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #119

                                    So long ago.... Started writing BASIC on a Vic20 (at the tender age of 11) then commodore 64, Timex Sinclair, TRS80 , TI 99 and then move up to PC XT,AT and so on. After BASIC, I moved on to PROGRESS for 10 years on main frames and PC . Now a days, i only program in WINDEV and will never look back. But i do really really miss my 64. I just loved that machine. I got really hooked on programming by a magazine(and i dont remember the name) that had a lot of info on the 64 and some language machine programs in it the you had to type in with a little program they supplied. I wish my kids would have something similar today Later all :) Methos

                                    "When you have learned to snatch the error code from the trap frame, it will be time for you to leave "

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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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                                      Mcsquare
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #120

                                      I was 21, my last semester in college as a Math major looking to get into programming when I could finally take my first computer course, Fortran. I had to type the program on paper tape, but the professor could never get the college computer(PDP 8) working. Luckily IBM hired me right after graduation and taught me DOS 360 Assembler language(this was the late 60's). I worked on the DOS supervisor (aka operating system) for the IBM 360/370 Mainframe computers written in Macro Assembler. Anyone remember what an "MNote" was??? Old and crotchety, but still codin'

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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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                                        Mobile001
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #121

                                        I started programming with CMS-2Y in 1978 on a Sperry Univac AN/UYK-7 mainframe with the Military. It was great to get a TI-99 and hook it up to a 12 Inch Black and white TV as my Monitor and play with those sprites and Basic. There were two camps in the early to mid-80's...the TI hams and the VIc-20/Commodore 64 sluggers. Who would have ever know that my life's work has changed since being introduced to programming..oh so long ago. Lloyd:)

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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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                                          tylermenezes
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #122

                                          Well, I am fourteen now, but I started around nine with VB.NET.

                                          -Tyler Menezes CEO and Chairman of Programs and Websites and MyWebsFree.com "If a plane is on a convayer belt moving backwards at the same speed that it moves fowards, will it take off?"

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