How old did you start programming?
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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
16 years old, using VBA in excel, my first line of code: x = shell("winfile.exe") All to get Duke Nukem 3D working on the library 486 running 3.11, can't remember what version of Excel it was. Then some serious time spent in config.sys and autoexec.bat just to get the CD rom working, MSCDEX anybody? But then I moved onto VB3... feel the power.
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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.
I think I was 9 or 10 years old when I first programmed in Basic. I had then a 486, 40MHz, which I was overclocked to 66MHz, which was later again overclocked to 100MHz , 272MB HDD, 8MB RAM
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It's funny, the teaser on my CodeProject email said "Fourteen, on cards, using Fortran.", which is pretty much where I started on a IBM/1130 -- it had a big red button on it for a cold start. Also BASIC (that's real Dartmouth BASIC) on some timesharing system back in 1972 (I was actually 14). I got one of the first copies of what was called MiniUNIX direct from Bell Labs for a PDP-11/20 I worked on. We were happy to work on that because it had a Tektronix screen -- so we didn't have to use those noisy TTYs. My PDA has 2000 times more memory than that thing -- 32K of real core. Another happy memory: when DEC came out with RK05's so we could carry our 1-2MB home (payroll etc) -- it was about as big as 2 or 3 stacked pizzas. Steve
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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
18 years old, in FOCAL using a TeleType connected to a DEC PDP-8. It handled 5 simulaneous users and had 8Kwords (12-bit). I then used BASIC on a DEC PDP-10 which I think had 160Kwords (36-bit this time). Then, very rapidly, Macro-10 (PDP-10 assembler), FORTRAN, ALGOL60, ALGOL68, Macro-8 (PDP-8 assembler), PL/1, Babbage (a high-level assembler for GEC 4000 computers) and IBM/360 assembly language. By then, I was 22. I bought my first computer when aged 32; it was an Amstrad PPC640 with 640K memory and no hard drive. I added a 40Mb drive later. Programmed it using Basic and Assembler. I'd have to think about how many different types of machine I've used and with which languages. The list included PDP-11, VAX series (from MicroVax to 8650), IBM/370, GEC 4000 and 6000, as well most IBM-PC variants (from 8086 on). For some time my favourite language was Perl, because of it's portability, but I haven't used it for a few months (although I did use it extensively last year to query an ancient Oracle database). I now program mainly in Visual Basic and Transact-SQL (2005 versions) and can still run rings around almost every other programmer I come across.
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hobbywise back in the seventies, 8080, z80, 6800, 6502... and my alltime favorite, the 2650 (anybody know what that was?) and all programming done in assembler. hog heaven if you ask me! and great fun too... squeezing all desired functionality in as few bytes as possible... save a byte, get a sixpack (remember?) professionally, macro-11 and fortran on pdp-11s under rt-11sj/fb/xm and rsx-11s/m. after that the pc and the subsequent demise of a great art/craft. remember this one? - Real programmers don't write specs -- Users should consider themselves lucky to get any programs at all and take what they get. - Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to read. - Real programmers don't write application programs, they program right down on the bare metal. Application programming is for feebs who can't do systems programming. - Real programmers don't eat quiche. They eat twinkies, and szechevan food. - Real programmers programs never work right the first time. But if you throw them on the machine they can be patched into working in only a few 30-hours debugging sessions. - Real programmers don't write in Fortran. Fortran is for pipe stress freaks and crystallography weenies. Read the full article here: http://www.travelnotes.de/california/silicon/realprog.htm
I remember that... I also remember how it seemed so apt the first time I came across it after several overnight programming sessions. "Overnight" was normal because the turnaround time on the mainframe was better at night (a few minutes) when only the 'serious' programmers were queuing jobs to it! During the day, jobs could spend a couple of hours in the queue waiting to be run.
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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
I was 12 and worked in Basic on the local university mainframe via a 300-baud modem with acoustic couplers. I then "graduated" at 13 to a TRS-80 model I with level I basic and 4K RAM and a 150 baud cassette drive at school. My parents got me a TRS-80 model I with level II (deluxe model) with a whopping 16K RAM and 300 baud cassette drive! I know that dates me. Now my Samsung i500 (Palm based phone) with 16MB of memory would run rings around that Model I and it's 2"x3"x3/4" and it can connect to the internet!
Andrew C. Eisenberg Nashville, TN, USA (a.k.a. Music City USA) (Yes Virginia, there are rock and roll stations in Nashville! :laugh:)
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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
i was born in 1979 and coded my first program in 1990. Selim DURMUS System Administrator Middle East Technical Universty TURKEY selimdurmus@hotmail.com
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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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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
I was 20, the year was 1966, the languages were autocoder and machine code. The memory technology was mercury delay line (you could see the bits flipping) and it had 8K thereof, its external i/o was paper tape (in and out). The mass storage was a drum about the size of an large industrial washing machine that I think held about 256K bytes. Ths manufacturer was Ferranti, the machine was called Sirius; I guess it was 2nd generation, if one regards Univac and Atlas a first generation. Next I got to use to a Burroughs system - using Algol, which is when I first started using semi-colons.