The Warm Glow of the Computer
-
I remember back when I was a kid, I thought computers were the greatest invention in the world. Life suddenly becomes more interesting because of the thorough complexities and capabilities; all working to entertain, educate, and empower. It was like an entirely new world where your imagination is the only boundary and where anyone can build and control the world inside their computers. What were your impressions of computers when you first starting using and working with them?
Way back when, in 1972, I was in high school math class. The teacher was showing us how to perform some knid of math operation (I din't remember what) which involved multipling very large numbers using scientific notation. Not one to take anyones word for accuracy, I was hand multiplying two 20 digit numbers. I wanted to see how accurate the approximation method was. The teacher saw me doing this and said "just take that down to the computer room". I thought to myself, what the heck is a computer room. I went down and handed the equation to the guy sitting in front of a TTY terminal (paper tape and all). He entered in a few lines of code and instantly the answer typed out. I was amazed and have been hooked on computers ever since. From 75 buad TTY to 6502 assembler, 68HC11, QBASIC, VB, C, C# .Net I love this stuff.
-
I remember back when I was a kid, I thought computers were the greatest invention in the world. Life suddenly becomes more interesting because of the thorough complexities and capabilities; all working to entertain, educate, and empower. It was like an entirely new world where your imagination is the only boundary and where anyone can build and control the world inside their computers. What were your impressions of computers when you first starting using and working with them?
When I first used a computer back in '70, we had to type a program on a teletype and phone into a computer in Washington DC we fondly named Harvey and feed the ticker-tape through. (I was in 10th grade). We learned Basic. Didn't really get to work with computers again until later on in the 80s and 90s. Now we have 7 in the house. I work from home doing web development.
-
My first computer was a TI-99-4, when I was 10, and I would spend whole weekends coding in TI-BASIC. But, the 'warm, fuzzy, computers taking over the world' feeling you are talking about came when the computer moved to my room... I wrote the simplest infinite loop, changing from black to a color to black, etc...yes, a strobe light! I would change the color, some worked better than others, and would spend lots of hours listening to music in a multi-colored strobe light filled room. I guess that explains a few things... :laugh:
I also started with a TI-994a with the cassette interface. (1983 I think) I spent countless hours learning TI-Basic to make simple programs, math quizzes, etc. and was hooked. I especially enjoyed the Adventure games by Scott Adams. I strayed away from computers for over 10 years until my dad brought home a power mac 6100 from work, then I rediscovered the joy that I had forgotten. Soon after, I went back to college as a CIS major, and finished this time. Now, I have more computers than I care to admit.
-
Utterly embarrassing; here is a scan of my handwritten notes from 1984, teching myself BASIC on a TRS-80, which would have been while I was in 6th grade. Geek from birth, please enjoy a massive LOL at my expense. 6thGradeLOLprogramming.JPG Regards, -Mouse :-\
-
When I first used a computer back in '70, we had to type a program on a teletype and phone into a computer in Washington DC we fondly named Harvey and feed the ticker-tape through. (I was in 10th grade). We learned Basic. Didn't really get to work with computers again until later on in the 80s and 90s. Now we have 7 in the house. I work from home doing web development.
One other note -- someone mentioned the Adventure game -- I had just started teaching in a business school ("Introduction to Management" to bored sophomores) when one of my students told me about this game that could be accessed in the school's computer lab (i.e., a bunch of terminals connected to a VAX somewhere) -- I spent most free minutes running next door to sign onto it, and even checked out a modem (100 baud) so that I could play from home over the weekends. A couple of years later I went to work for the National Science Foundation in DC, and discovered that the same game could be found on NSF's mainframe; there, I finally solved it all. While at NSF, I bought myself an Apple ][; we got IBM PC's ( with 10 MB hard drives -- how to fill all that up!). When I left NSF in 1985, there were all of 12 PCs in the entire NSF, and I had one of them in my office, having traded my desk chair to my boss for it. Volkswriter, anyone? An entire word processor and all your documents, fitting on one 5.25" disk (that really flopped!) :omg:
-
I believe that the language you're referring to was LOGO (not to be confused with the current cable TV channel of the same name -- it was a lot about "turtle graphics" and making the turtle do things. It was supposed to empower kids and in general make the world a warmer, fuzzier place to be. You see how well it succeeded in that direction. Ah, for the days of Zork I, II, and III! :-D
-
Was that the Pen Up and Pen Down one?
Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. - Aristotle
Yes. The idea was a relatively simple control language to teach basic concepts - and empowerment.
-
I remember back when I was a kid, I thought computers were the greatest invention in the world. Life suddenly becomes more interesting because of the thorough complexities and capabilities; all working to entertain, educate, and empower. It was like an entirely new world where your imagination is the only boundary and where anyone can build and control the world inside their computers. What were your impressions of computers when you first starting using and working with them?
-
I remember back when I was a kid, I thought computers were the greatest invention in the world. Life suddenly becomes more interesting because of the thorough complexities and capabilities; all working to entertain, educate, and empower. It was like an entirely new world where your imagination is the only boundary and where anyone can build and control the world inside their computers. What were your impressions of computers when you first starting using and working with them?
My first computer was a Commodore Vic20 which if anyone remembers was basically a fat keyboard that you could plug cartridges into. I also had the tape drive which was sooooo slow. You could program in BASIC and I spent a lot of time making mine play music. Oh for the days of all that PEEKing and POKEing and GOTO looping =).
-
I remember back when I was a kid, I thought computers were the greatest invention in the world. Life suddenly becomes more interesting because of the thorough complexities and capabilities; all working to entertain, educate, and empower. It was like an entirely new world where your imagination is the only boundary and where anyone can build and control the world inside their computers. What were your impressions of computers when you first starting using and working with them?
At my job I did some very limited assembly coding on an IBM-360. in later jobs I worked with Microdata and PDP mini's. I played my first "Adventure game on a Microdata mini with 16KB of core memory. One of the hardware engineers at still another job gave me a KIM-1. It was a 6502 based SBC with a hex keypad and a 6 digit 7 segment LED display. I spent hours keying in "Hunt the Wumpus" on it. I soon became a hardware designer myself and I did some coding for 2901 state engines. Later I made my own state engines with PLD's. What fun! Later a group of us guys formed a small company to design and manufacture an interface to connect 10 MB 14 inch hard disk drives to TRS-80's, Apple II's and S-100 computers. This was just before disk technology evolved into the sealed IDE hard disk drives which made our product obsolete. Now I'm doing this. Edwin
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
-
I hate this darn machine, I wish that I could sell it. It won't do what I want it to, but only what I tell it.
"Do what I meant, not what I said."
Software Zen:
delete this; -
I remember back when I was a kid, I thought computers were the greatest invention in the world. Life suddenly becomes more interesting because of the thorough complexities and capabilities; all working to entertain, educate, and empower. It was like an entirely new world where your imagination is the only boundary and where anyone can build and control the world inside their computers. What were your impressions of computers when you first starting using and working with them?
My first computer was a Cosmac Elf, an 1802 processor with 1K of RAM. I thought computers were the greatest invention since the printing press. A great toy, where there was almost nothing between my mind and the canvas. Talk about freedom! I still feel that way, the ability to think of something, and then realize it with a little bit of typing is magic of the highest order. I mostly do embedded systems for a living, everything from 8 pin 8 bit micros to embedded linux machines. It's the most fun I can have and get paid for! Computing since 1972. (Started on the High School's Cannon Logical Programmer.)
-
One other note -- someone mentioned the Adventure game -- I had just started teaching in a business school ("Introduction to Management" to bored sophomores) when one of my students told me about this game that could be accessed in the school's computer lab (i.e., a bunch of terminals connected to a VAX somewhere) -- I spent most free minutes running next door to sign onto it, and even checked out a modem (100 baud) so that I could play from home over the weekends. A couple of years later I went to work for the National Science Foundation in DC, and discovered that the same game could be found on NSF's mainframe; there, I finally solved it all. While at NSF, I bought myself an Apple ][; we got IBM PC's ( with 10 MB hard drives -- how to fill all that up!). When I left NSF in 1985, there were all of 12 PCs in the entire NSF, and I had one of them in my office, having traded my desk chair to my boss for it. Volkswriter, anyone? An entire word processor and all your documents, fitting on one 5.25" disk (that really flopped!) :omg:
I remember ads for Volkswriter, but was using MINCE on 8 inch floppies on a CP/M system myself. (MINCE Is Not Complete Emacs) IIRC, Electic Pencil was also popular in the same time frame. That original text adventure game was wonderful, spent many, many hours there myself. I spent $5000 on a CP/M system with 64K of RAM and two 8 inch floppy drives when you could buy a very nice car for that price. Never regretted buying the computer, it was so much more fun than the car would have been. Do you remember JRT Pascal?
-
I remember ads for Volkswriter, but was using MINCE on 8 inch floppies on a CP/M system myself. (MINCE Is Not Complete Emacs) IIRC, Electic Pencil was also popular in the same time frame. That original text adventure game was wonderful, spent many, many hours there myself. I spent $5000 on a CP/M system with 64K of RAM and two 8 inch floppy drives when you could buy a very nice car for that price. Never regretted buying the computer, it was so much more fun than the car would have been. Do you remember JRT Pascal?
When got to NSF in 1979, we were using DECWriters -- roughly the size of a small refrigerator, with a separate printer (IBM Selectric) about the same size - 8" floppies as well. They would hold about 60-70 pages of text; to change a font, even to italicize a word, you had to change the Selectric ball and run the page through the printer again, being sure that it lined up perfectly, of course. When I got my Apple ][ Plus in 1980, I had them install a separate CP/M card that would allow an 80-column display and let me run WordStar -- ah, bliss! Also spent about $5000 on the system overall -- when I'd been making all of $18,000 per year as an assistant professor (NSF paid better, about $32,000 p/a as I recall). I did some Pascal programming, but most of my coursework and related research work used Fortran, at which I got pretty good. I had a couple of simulation programs that ran to at least two entire boxes of IBM punchcards, each roughly 15" long and holding, if I recall, about 500 cards each. It took about five minutes to read the program into the card reader, then 15-20 minutes hanging around the output window to get back the error report telling you that you'd mispunched one card by a notch, and then had to dig through the decks to find the card, repunch it (after waiting in line for access to the keypunch) and try again. Then there was the fun when you dropped a box of cards and they went flying all over the floor at random. I can't remember how many times I got to see the cold light of dawn coming out of the Computing Center at 6 am after a fun evening of Fortran-on-the-rocks... Good times... :omg: JD
-
When got to NSF in 1979, we were using DECWriters -- roughly the size of a small refrigerator, with a separate printer (IBM Selectric) about the same size - 8" floppies as well. They would hold about 60-70 pages of text; to change a font, even to italicize a word, you had to change the Selectric ball and run the page through the printer again, being sure that it lined up perfectly, of course. When I got my Apple ][ Plus in 1980, I had them install a separate CP/M card that would allow an 80-column display and let me run WordStar -- ah, bliss! Also spent about $5000 on the system overall -- when I'd been making all of $18,000 per year as an assistant professor (NSF paid better, about $32,000 p/a as I recall). I did some Pascal programming, but most of my coursework and related research work used Fortran, at which I got pretty good. I had a couple of simulation programs that ran to at least two entire boxes of IBM punchcards, each roughly 15" long and holding, if I recall, about 500 cards each. It took about five minutes to read the program into the card reader, then 15-20 minutes hanging around the output window to get back the error report telling you that you'd mispunched one card by a notch, and then had to dig through the decks to find the card, repunch it (after waiting in line for access to the keypunch) and try again. Then there was the fun when you dropped a box of cards and they went flying all over the floor at random. I can't remember how many times I got to see the cold light of dawn coming out of the Computing Center at 6 am after a fun evening of Fortran-on-the-rocks... Good times... :omg: JD
JD, I never played with punched cards much, but in the early days of the Shuttle program I used to toggle in the tape reader device driver using front panel switches so you could feed in the paper tapes. Stuff like that formed character. :-) Of course having your own 2 GHz Processor is nice too. ;-)
