Computer Intro!
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For Christmas of 1981 my parents bought us a ti-99/4a. I learned Basic, and spent coutless hours writing llttle programs to solve my math homework. It also had a decent selection of games. It's weakness was no internal storage. Programs had to be saved to and loaded from a cassette player. That early programming served me well when I went to uni for comp. sci. in 1988 when the introductory course was Basic. :)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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For Christmas of 1981 my parents bought us a ti-99/4a. I learned Basic, and spent coutless hours writing llttle programs to solve my math homework. It also had a decent selection of games. It's weakness was no internal storage. Programs had to be saved to and loaded from a cassette player. That early programming served me well when I went to uni for comp. sci. in 1988 when the introductory course was Basic. :)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
I was able to convince my mom to spend the $300 for the expansion box and the floppy disk drive for my TI. I recall the disks stored a whopping 90 KB!
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Just looked that one up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_1000[^]...the first home computer for under $100. I must have gotten my TI in 1982 when they had to drop the price to stay competitive. What do you think it's worth now? :)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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Just looked that one up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_1000[^]...the first home computer for under $100. I must have gotten my TI in 1982 when they had to drop the price to stay competitive. What do you think it's worth now? :)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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I was able to convince my mom to spend the $300 for the expansion box and the floppy disk drive for my TI. I recall the disks stored a whopping 90 KB!
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
I only dreamt about the expansion box! Right after I spent $50 or so for the TI-Extended Basic module, the cassette/audio interface gave out. It was a real bummer not being able to save anything so I kind of quit using it at that point. It probably still works, but I'd be hard pressed to find a RF converter for the TV...might be kind of amusing. :laugh:
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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S Houghtelin wrote:
I know people who fit the last line...
And I know a few that wouldn't even measure up to a screw driver!
VS2010/Atmel Studio 6.1 ToDo Manager Extension Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.
:laugh:
It was broke, so I fixed it.
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I only dreamt about the expansion box! Right after I spent $50 or so for the TI-Extended Basic module, the cassette/audio interface gave out. It was a real bummer not being able to save anything so I kind of quit using it at that point. It probably still works, but I'd be hard pressed to find a RF converter for the TV...might be kind of amusing. :laugh:
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
Well of course, we 'ad it 'ard; the only way I got to see a ZX81 was when I visited my cousins in London. And when we got 'ome our dad would kill us and dance on our graves.
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For Christmas of 1981 my parents bought us a ti-99/4a. I learned Basic, and spent coutless hours writing llttle programs to solve my math homework. It also had a decent selection of games. It's weakness was no internal storage. Programs had to be saved to and loaded from a cassette player. That early programming served me well when I went to uni for comp. sci. in 1988 when the introductory course was Basic. :)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
Yeah most programmers from our generation share a very similar background story: it was the 80's and it was the golden age of 8 bit micro computing, so more or less all of us went through the whole "learn BASIC on some 8 bit machine" thing. Fond memories indeed! :) Guess I should start another thread about the best 8 bit machine, just to get some flame war on... ;P But it seems noone else used "Computer Intro!". Feeling lonely! :sigh:
I would love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code! -- Unknown PROGRAM - n. A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages. v. tr.- To engage in a pastime similar to banging one's head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward. -- Uknown
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I recently came upon a discussion here in the lounge which brought back some very old and very fond memories. It reminded me about starting my passion for programming with an old game console cartridge providing a small pseudo-assembly language for educational purposes (see my message here[^] for details). It was the "Computer Intro!" cartridge for Philips Videopac G7000 / Magnavox Odyssey2[^] - you can find a copy of its manual here[^]. I was wondering - did anyone else here had a chance to play with this wonderful toy? Any fond memory to share? :-D
I would love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code! -- Unknown PROGRAM - n. A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages. v. tr.- To engage in a pastime similar to banging one's head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward. -- Uknown
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I actually had this cartridge and thought that no one else ever bought one! It got me started, and then Commodore 64 kept me going.
I was beginning to think I was the only one! :-D It was a C64 for me as well after that. I really wish I still had some of the programs I wrote on paper for the cartridge, guess I could hang them on my office walls or sell them to some museum! :laugh:
I would love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code! -- Unknown PROGRAM - n. A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages. v. tr.- To engage in a pastime similar to banging one's head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward. -- Uknown
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Yeah most programmers from our generation share a very similar background story: it was the 80's and it was the golden age of 8 bit micro computing, so more or less all of us went through the whole "learn BASIC on some 8 bit machine" thing. Fond memories indeed! :) Guess I should start another thread about the best 8 bit machine, just to get some flame war on... ;P But it seems noone else used "Computer Intro!". Feeling lonely! :sigh:
I would love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code! -- Unknown PROGRAM - n. A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages. v. tr.- To engage in a pastime similar to banging one's head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward. -- Uknown
I love simplicity of basic. I hate when people say shit about basic just because you don't put curly braces on block of code and don't finish sentences by using that damn semicolon. Fuck those, my compiler is smart enough to know then statement ends and don't need them. I also love how easy is to make a parser/compiler/interpreter for old basic today on high level languages, just for fun.
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I love simplicity of basic. I hate when people say shit about basic just because you don't put curly braces on block of code and don't finish sentences by using that damn semicolon. Fuck those, my compiler is smart enough to know then statement ends and don't need them. I also love how easy is to make a parser/compiler/interpreter for old basic today on high level languages, just for fun.
Well yeah I agree that sometimes people just talk crap about BASIC because it's hip to do that. Still, plain old BASIC is a language engineered in different times and for different needs from today. You wouldn't want to use it for any "serious" task just as much as you most likely wouldn't want to use any other language you used in the 70s or 80s. :) Of course, modern and richer implementations of such languages do exist and it may make good sense to use them. Think of the new reinassance for functional languages for example, or just how C itself evolved in C++ and so on. So, basically what holds for old time BASIC should not hold for VB.NET, for example... even if I can't avoid asking do we really need a VB.NET ? Maybe. Still, going though the (in)famous VB era in the 90s did leave a sour taste in many mouths, mine included! ;P VB was a great tool for some kind of jobs (for example, think "modern" UI development made easy and straightforward COM/ActiveX integration, which were a winner back then), but it still was a programming enviromnent built on what IMHO is a VERY wrong assumption: you don't have to be a developer to write code. WRONG! We all know what happens when you start doing that! While I respect self-taught developers (we all were at some point or another I guess), just like you cannot be an architect and design houses without a proper background and education, you cannot be a developer without at least some knowledge of computer science. Think about a guy who's trying to develop even the simplest commercial software and doesn't know about any algorithms or data structures. He's going to re-invent the wheel each single time, and even if he's the smartest guy on the block, he's going to do many things wrong, while he would greatly benefit from a deeper knowledge, which besides would allow him to concentate more on the specific functionalities of his software, and in turn do a better job there too. So, that's why, at least IMHO, we all talk crap about BASIC. :-D You'll never hear many people go "Pascal is just crap", cause in the 90's Delphi would allow you to do much of what VB did with roughly the same ease (except maybe COM/ActiveX stuff), but with a solid language, real OOP and a rich library.
I would love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code! -- Unknown PROGRAM - n. A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages. v. tr.- To engage in a pastime similar to banging one's head against a wal
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Well yeah I agree that sometimes people just talk crap about BASIC because it's hip to do that. Still, plain old BASIC is a language engineered in different times and for different needs from today. You wouldn't want to use it for any "serious" task just as much as you most likely wouldn't want to use any other language you used in the 70s or 80s. :) Of course, modern and richer implementations of such languages do exist and it may make good sense to use them. Think of the new reinassance for functional languages for example, or just how C itself evolved in C++ and so on. So, basically what holds for old time BASIC should not hold for VB.NET, for example... even if I can't avoid asking do we really need a VB.NET ? Maybe. Still, going though the (in)famous VB era in the 90s did leave a sour taste in many mouths, mine included! ;P VB was a great tool for some kind of jobs (for example, think "modern" UI development made easy and straightforward COM/ActiveX integration, which were a winner back then), but it still was a programming enviromnent built on what IMHO is a VERY wrong assumption: you don't have to be a developer to write code. WRONG! We all know what happens when you start doing that! While I respect self-taught developers (we all were at some point or another I guess), just like you cannot be an architect and design houses without a proper background and education, you cannot be a developer without at least some knowledge of computer science. Think about a guy who's trying to develop even the simplest commercial software and doesn't know about any algorithms or data structures. He's going to re-invent the wheel each single time, and even if he's the smartest guy on the block, he's going to do many things wrong, while he would greatly benefit from a deeper knowledge, which besides would allow him to concentate more on the specific functionalities of his software, and in turn do a better job there too. So, that's why, at least IMHO, we all talk crap about BASIC. :-D You'll never hear many people go "Pascal is just crap", cause in the 90's Delphi would allow you to do much of what VB did with roughly the same ease (except maybe COM/ActiveX stuff), but with a solid language, real OOP and a rich library.
I would love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code! -- Unknown PROGRAM - n. A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages. v. tr.- To engage in a pastime similar to banging one's head against a wal
If you think that is bad, look at how much COBOL was written for critical applications. Large applications (millions of lines) for financial institutions and the US government at all levels. Basic is much easier to understand and program with. And, when I learned BASIC back in college, we didn't need punch cards like we did for FORTRAN or COBOL. Times were changing back then.
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If you think that is bad, look at how much COBOL was written for critical applications. Large applications (millions of lines) for financial institutions and the US government at all levels. Basic is much easier to understand and program with. And, when I learned BASIC back in college, we didn't need punch cards like we did for FORTRAN or COBOL. Times were changing back then.
I agree: COBOL is another good example of a language which, in good and bad, survived its own usability because it kept being used in a context where all in all it did its job. Of course from the point of view of code maintenance and systems integration I guess many developers would be happier if banks & governments switched to some other programming language long ago. :)
I would love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code! -- Unknown PROGRAM - n. A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages. v. tr.- To engage in a pastime similar to banging one's head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward. -- Uknown
