Your first experience with a PC! ..or any computer!
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BBC Micro-Computer. I remember we were trying to get a "print" statement working in teh first class but never got it to work. Also at that time we had an impression that computer know everything. We repeatedly asked the question: "Who was the Champion of Champions in the World Series Cup?" and of course we got an error each time. :)
Co-Author ASP.NET AJAX in Action
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
I remember we were trying to get a "print" statement working in teh first class but never got it to work. Also at that time we had an impression that computer know everything. We repeatedly asked the question: "Who was the Champion of Champions in the World Series Cup?" and of course we got an error each time.
Exactly! We thought the same. but to the extent that I thought it would know me. But in moments later, I realized it's limits and came down to it's level and typed this.
c:>2+3= ?
And the data entry operator there asked me to put the question mark at the begining like ,C:>?2+3 C:>5
and it worked. Hey will that work now in our command prompt?? let me see :)
The Advantage in work-from-home is that... we can blame the dog -Mark Salsbery Best wishes to Rexx[^]
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I don't know what make and model it was, but back in the '70s at the Boston Museum of Science there was a computer on which one could play Tic Tac Toe! I'm pretty sure it wouldn't play Global Thermonuclear War. :-D I first learned BASIC-Plus on a PDP-11 in 1983. I didn't use a PC until about 1989 -- 386. The first computer I owned was a 486.
My first game was ...hmm something like, SPACE... it starts with "SPACE" much like "Galaxian" we found in video games. About the SPACE..,Rows alien ships come down attacking our plane, which is stuck to the last row of the monitor :) and can only move to the sides. Only 3 key usage. <-- --> and the space bad to fire.
The Advantage in work-from-home is that... we can blame the dog -Mark Salsbery Best wishes to Rexx[^]
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Univac 1100 series as I recall. 1975. It resided behind the glass wall in the room with all the scary signs about the dangers of the fire extinguisher's gases, the raised floor, the many cabinets of electronics, whirring tape drives and spaceship-looking disk packs. Watching the white-coated priests of technology tend to their ablutions. Whoa. I sat down as a 13 yr old in front of a teletype in a windowless University computer lab full of these clattering beasts. Deafening. No stinkin' punch cards here, this baby was interactive! (You could go the paper-tape route if needed though....) My older brother showed me how to run the BASIC tutorial.
TUT01. That was it-I was done in. I surfaced 8 hours later a programmer.:cool: I had scroll upon scroll of print outs. My head throbbed, my eyes hurt. I needed the juice now. Soon, I got to play with my brothers KIM-1 6502 microprocessor board with the hex pad and a 6 Alphanumeric LED character display. Then the big leagues: An Ohio Scientific C1P - Basic Interpreter, cassette tape interface, 16K. But of course I lusted after an Apple II. Color Graphics. Disks. CP/M card. An absolute plethora of PC's - Kaypro "portable" and a succession of custom systems I built. OMG :omg: I had to have a Mac. and another. and another. Currently a 1.8 gig Dual core system running XP that's servicable. Not as much fun as the Apple II though... I'd forgotten... Back to work... Thanks for the diversion! Buzzby I spend way too much time with computers.Don't know what it was but I went to work with my Dad one Saturday - it was big, sat in the corner and hummed (a Zen Computer? ;P) I think it was programmed in something called RPG4. I spent the whole day reading the manuals and trying to make it do something but I don't think I did. Later when the company upgraded and dumped the old computer I was really mad at Dad for not bringing it home even though he would have needed a truck and it would probably have doubled his electric bill! Shortly after he did bring home a computer - a ZX81 and from there I went to Spectrum, Atari, Mainframe with punch cards!!, then Apple II before finally ending up with various PCs I also built my own computer - well a Zilog Z80 processor with 8 switches and 8 LEDs, boy did I have some fun programming those lights to flash on and off!!
Apathy Rules - I suppose...
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10 PRINT "1983, Commodore PET "; 20 GOTO 10 RUN 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET 1983, Commodore PET
Heh. Same machine, but a few years earlier than that. By 1981 I was on a Vax-11/780 and an Apple II. Luckily, I did not have to work on IBM System 38 - they had to use punch cards X| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System/38[^]
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Here's mine. At the age of 13, I managed to touch a PC[Thinks it's a 386] for the first time in a computer lab. It had a floppy booted MS DOS. That beeps loudly at boot up. When I first saw a computer I couldn't even guess it's purpose. I was even amazed by the fact that , if we press a key, it gets displayed on the screen!:-O [btw, I still wonder at it.that's a different thing]. I was tempted to type my name there. And the sequence : ME: C:>VUNIC. DOS: BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME. (after thinking for a while about it's response) ME: BADCOMMAND DOS: BAD COMMAND OR FILENAME ME: FILENAME DOS : BAD COMMAND OR FILENAME ME: Asshole, you gave me only two options. :mad: As it tells you,I managed to use a pc at an early age, but still I did not manage to see how a punched card looks like. What's your story?
The Advantage in work-from-home is that... we can blame the dog -Mark Salsbery Best wishes to Rexx[^]
Apple 2 at school in the mid 80's. Stick the floppy in, turn it on, wait 5 minutes, play a game (generally Oregon Trail). A year or two later my family got a TRS-80 color as an xmas gift and I learned to program for loops to generate ascii type art. First real computer was a 486-25 bought a year or so after the 1st p1s came out.
-- If you view money as inherently evil, I view it as my duty to assist in making you more virtuous.
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VuNic wrote:
ME: C:>VUNIC. DOS: BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME. (after thinking for a while about it's response) ME: BADCOMMAND DOS: BAD COMMAND OR FILENAME ME: FILENAME DOS : BAD COMMAND OR FILENAME ME: a**hole, you gave me only two options.
You should have used BAD COMMAND instead of BADCOMMAND LOL ....
Greets! Joel
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I don't remember which came first, the Sinclair Timex Sinclair 1000 at school or an Apple II (or III or something ) in a computer programming course (LOGO) that I took with my dad at about that time.
Maximilien Lincourt Your Head A Splode - Strong Bad
I remember mine was the Apple IIe.
God Bless, Jason
God doesn't believe in atheist but He still loves them and INITCOMMONCONTROLSEX too. -
Don't know what it was but I went to work with my Dad one Saturday - it was big, sat in the corner and hummed (a Zen Computer? ;P) I think it was programmed in something called RPG4. I spent the whole day reading the manuals and trying to make it do something but I don't think I did. Later when the company upgraded and dumped the old computer I was really mad at Dad for not bringing it home even though he would have needed a truck and it would probably have doubled his electric bill! Shortly after he did bring home a computer - a ZX81 and from there I went to Spectrum, Atari, Mainframe with punch cards!!, then Apple II before finally ending up with various PCs I also built my own computer - well a Zilog Z80 processor with 8 switches and 8 LEDs, boy did I have some fun programming those lights to flash on and off!!
Apathy Rules - I suppose...
Steve_pqr wrote:
for not bringing it home
Yeah! On my co-op job in college I worked at a place that had recently upgraded to a MicroVAX 3600, leaving a PDP-11 and a VAX-11/780 unused, my boss jokingly asked if I'd want the PDP... well sure I would... but I couldn't get it home or afford the power. I now have my own AlphaServer and an OpenVMS hobbyist licence, whoo hoo! Waay better than some old PDP. :cool:
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Here's mine. At the age of 13, I managed to touch a PC[Thinks it's a 386] for the first time in a computer lab. It had a floppy booted MS DOS. That beeps loudly at boot up. When I first saw a computer I couldn't even guess it's purpose. I was even amazed by the fact that , if we press a key, it gets displayed on the screen!:-O [btw, I still wonder at it.that's a different thing]. I was tempted to type my name there. And the sequence : ME: C:>VUNIC. DOS: BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME. (after thinking for a while about it's response) ME: BADCOMMAND DOS: BAD COMMAND OR FILENAME ME: FILENAME DOS : BAD COMMAND OR FILENAME ME: Asshole, you gave me only two options. :mad: As it tells you,I managed to use a pc at an early age, but still I did not manage to see how a punched card looks like. What's your story?
The Advantage in work-from-home is that... we can blame the dog -Mark Salsbery Best wishes to Rexx[^]
In grade 10, the computer lab was one TRS80 Model I with tape drive. A guy showed me nested FOR loops to make a grid of squares. I was hooked. By grade 12, I was looking after the classes for the teacher, installing CP/M boards in PETs, re-inking ribbons. My graduating gift was an Atari 400 (the one with 8K, tape drive and membrane keyboard). I had to chop down almost every program in magazines to fit the memory. My first PC was an Acer XT (10Mhz 8086, 20MB drive, and 10Mhz 8087 chip):-O Only Lotus 1-2-3 and Autocad used the 8087 though.:sigh:
"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..." "There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain..."
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Paul Watson wrote:
...popped the boot of his beige Toyota Corolla...
Boot? Was the car a convertible, or is that a seat cover?
"A good athlete is the result of a good and worthy opponent." - David Crow
"To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals; to have deference for others governs our manners." - Laurence Sterne
You've heard the phrase "Car boot sale" before? You might call a boot a trunk. It would be wrong of course since we long moved on from strapping trunks to the back of cars[^] ;)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Andy Brummer wrote:
Watson's law: As an online discussion of cars grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the Bugatti Veyron approaches one.
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You're a lot younger than I thought you were. ;)
Never trust machinery more complicated than a knife and fork. - Jubal Harshaw in Stranger in a Strange Land
I am 27. Is that younger than you thought?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Andy Brummer wrote:
Watson's law: As an online discussion of cars grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the Bugatti Veyron approaches one.
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Here's mine. At the age of 13, I managed to touch a PC[Thinks it's a 386] for the first time in a computer lab. It had a floppy booted MS DOS. That beeps loudly at boot up. When I first saw a computer I couldn't even guess it's purpose. I was even amazed by the fact that , if we press a key, it gets displayed on the screen!:-O [btw, I still wonder at it.that's a different thing]. I was tempted to type my name there. And the sequence : ME: C:>VUNIC. DOS: BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME. (after thinking for a while about it's response) ME: BADCOMMAND DOS: BAD COMMAND OR FILENAME ME: FILENAME DOS : BAD COMMAND OR FILENAME ME: Asshole, you gave me only two options. :mad: As it tells you,I managed to use a pc at an early age, but still I did not manage to see how a punched card looks like. What's your story?
The Advantage in work-from-home is that... we can blame the dog -Mark Salsbery Best wishes to Rexx[^]
I don't remember my very first experience, but I started using a Commodore (unknown model) sometime around 1990 or even 1989. It was this huge box, the size of a medium-tower case, but with a 7- or 8-inch CRT monitor on the left of the front panel. On the right was the floppy drive. All of this covered by the keyboard. I used to play absurd videogames. I still remember a fue of them (I was 5 or 6). In 1992* my dad bought a 486-DX2 (66 MHx, with 4 MB of RAM and a 420 MB hard disk) with Windows 3.11. Then, in 1995*, he got a Pentium 150, with 32 MB of RAM and a 1.2 GB disk, running Windows 95. But this is modern stuff already. I know, I'm a kid. I still have the Commodore in my basement (unfortunately is in pieces :sigh:, because when I was 14 or 15 I decided I wanted to see what was inside. What a pity). I also have the M/B, CPU and RAM of the 486 and Pentium... Anyway, I fell in love with computer much later, something like 6 years ago. *) If I recall correctly.
If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that "says something" about your personality, don't bother. You don't have a personality. A mental illness, maybe - but not a personality. - Charlie Brooker My Blog - My Photos - ScrewTurn Wiki
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I am 27. Is that younger than you thought?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Andy Brummer wrote:
Watson's law: As an online discussion of cars grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the Bugatti Veyron approaches one.
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You've heard the phrase "Car boot sale" before? You might call a boot a trunk. It would be wrong of course since we long moved on from strapping trunks to the back of cars[^] ;)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Andy Brummer wrote:
Watson's law: As an online discussion of cars grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the Bugatti Veyron approaches one.
Paul Watson wrote:
You've heard the phrase "Car boot sale" before?
No.
Paul Watson wrote:
You might call a boot a trunk.
Ah, ok.
"A good athlete is the result of a good and worthy opponent." - David Crow
"To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals; to have deference for others governs our manners." - Laurence Sterne
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You've heard the phrase "Car boot sale" before? You might call a boot a trunk. It would be wrong of course since we long moved on from strapping trunks to the back of cars[^] ;)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Andy Brummer wrote:
Watson's law: As an online discussion of cars grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the Bugatti Veyron approaches one.
They're a lot more trunk-like than boot-like.
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My dad arrived home one day, popped the boot of his beige Toyota Corolla and proudly displayed a beige 286. We rushed it inside, hooked it up on my desk and booted into the glory that was the command line prompt. I must have been about 9 or so. One thing that has stuck with me was playing the snake game that came with DOS and then going into the code and changing the body of the snake to a bunch of crazy characters. So much fun :)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Andy Brummer wrote:
Watson's law: As an online discussion of cars grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the Bugatti Veyron approaches one.
Paul Watson wrote:
playing the snake game that came with DOS
Twittlefingers level was pretty intense. :) Another good game that comes to mind was the gorilla.bas. 2 gorillas standing on sky scrapers, you input the velocity and angle, and bam, chuck a banana at the other gorilla and try to take him out.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. I'm currently blogging about: Sound The Great Shofar! The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
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Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
I remember we were trying to get a "print" statement working in teh first class but never got it to work. Also at that time we had an impression that computer know everything. We repeatedly asked the question: "Who was the Champion of Champions in the World Series Cup?" and of course we got an error each time.
Exactly! We thought the same. but to the extent that I thought it would know me. But in moments later, I realized it's limits and came down to it's level and typed this.
c:>2+3= ?
And the data entry operator there asked me to put the question mark at the begining like ,C:>?2+3 C:>5
and it worked. Hey will that work now in our command prompt?? let me see :)
The Advantage in work-from-home is that... we can blame the dog -Mark Salsbery Best wishes to Rexx[^]
That's exactly how I got started, only with my BASIC cartridge on an Atari 800. My mom knew the arcane commands needed to load Frogger from a cassette into memory but I found out that typing my math homework into the prompt gave me all the answers in record time. Less time doing homework and more time playing video games!
Please don't bother me... I'm hacking right now. Don't look at me like that - doesn't anybody remember what "hacking" really means? :sigh:
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I thought you again started saying something like "Buffalo,Buffalo,Buffalo,Buffalo,Buffalo"... LOL!!!!:-D Well, looking at your "code", it tells me one thing, When I started doing BASIC, I pretty much liked it. And I'm sure that the BASIC, or the GWBASIC was never much cursed or flamed by any one as we do on it's brother VB these days. And also, in a medium sized code , may be around 300 LOC, I used to find a lots of "GOTO"s , and it wasn't considered sin. May be it's because we had assembly as it's contemporary and using JMP, JE, JNE kinda things? goto would have been thought something similar to that, but later we could've realized what it is :). I loved the graphics in GWBASIC, 10 BEGIN 20 FOR I = 1 to 10 30 CIRCLE(300,300,I); 40 NEXT I 50 END :-O
The Advantage in work-from-home is that... we can blame the dog -Mark Salsbery Best wishes to Rexx[^]
That must have been some awesome display back then. I dreamed about (300,300), oh the kilopixels. :omg:
This blanket smells like ham
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They're a lot more trunk-like than boot-like.
Not in SA they aren't. Down there, all cars are sold with bare frame exposed in the area you and i might expect to see a trunk installed. So the natives, resourceful folk that they are, patch up a sort of storage cocoon out of old boot leather and lion sinew. It doesn't exactly resemble a boot, but it looks more like a boot than a trunk or a lion, and so the name sticks. ;)
every night, i kneel at the foot of my bed and thank the Great Overseeing Politicians for protecting my freedoms by reducing their number, as if they were deer in a state park. -- Chris Losinger, Online Poker Players?
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That must have been some awesome display back then. I dreamed about (300,300), oh the kilopixels. :omg:
This blanket smells like ham