Your First Development Machine?

hairy_hats

BBC Master Compact, with a naff green screen that made the world look like it had raster lines if you used it for too long...

quilkin

Basic on Sinclair ZX-81 in 1982 (it was released a year late). IK of Ram. Later bought a 16K dongle that kept falling off and losing my work.

Gary Wheeler

My first professional computer, that I actually got paid to program for, was an HP 1000[^] minicomputer in 1980. I also programmed on an Intel Intellec MDS-80[^] in that same time period. In 1984 I did a lot of programming on a Zenith Z-100, a predecessor of your 120.

Software Zen: delete this;

RogelioP EX DE HL

1980, Heathkit 3400 Microprocessor Trainer like this one [^]. Soon the Tandy Color computer would be released - with a Motorola MC68B09E microprocessor beating inside it - only natural I would graduate from the 6800 in the Heathkit to writing code for the CPU in the CoCo :cool: -- RP

Brad Stiles

Kevin Marois wrote:

I taught myself GW-Basic on this Zenith 120[^] back in 1985 while in the Marine Corps.

Wow, that takes me back. That was my second professional computer, in the same circumstances as yours, only a year later than you. :) I learned BASIC on a PDP 8 or 11 (I can't remember which) in High School in the late 70s. The first one of my own was an Atari 800; more BASIC. The first professional programming was in COBOL on whatever the Marine Corps was using in Quantico at the time, I think it was the 370, but I couldn't tell you for sure.

G Tek

Ditto that on the C64 (though it wasn't my first, a TI). Also had a special add-on cartridge - one of those ones that you buy from the massive computer supply stores with the big catalogs (remember the days of pre-internet catalogs?). I never quite took the time to understand how the cartridge worked, but boy did it make a difference in load times! Load just about anything in under 10 seconds. It was so much faster you would think it would just be destroying the disks in the process, but I never had any problems with the disks (ah, remember DS DD?).

G Tek

A TI-994A. With a tape recorded for storage... we were never rich enough to shell out for a disk drive. I remember my dad asking if I wanted to get an Atari at Christmas or the TI now... I'm a kid, of course I want it NOW. So while I never got to play the same cool games that all of my friends had (since EVERYONE else had an Atari), it did give me my first introduction to a real computer. After introducing me to programming, I then continued on with the various TI magazines (can't remember the name of any of them off-hand) and learned a lot about line-code programming.

G Tek

I think that may have been the same one that my Dad had. I remember being blown away by the graphics demo on it (which essentially showed amazing things equivalent to 1990's Windows screen-savers). He had it hooked up a heathkit power-bar kit. My first was a TI-994A right around the same time frame - I was in grade 3 at the time. I eventually moved on to C64.

Ravi Bhavnani

:thumbsup: /ravi

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edmurphy99

PDP-8 in 1981

jfwfmt

I taught myself Assembly Language on an IBM 7040 in 1968 or 1969 by reading the code output of the FORTRAN compiler.

DaveP62

Wow, this brings back fond memories. My first development machine was a Commodore Vic 20. I wrote a product pricing program on it for the first company I worked for back in the early 1980's. The proof of concept was well received. The company purchased an IBM PC with PFS File and word processing and my IT career was launched. :) And yes, the Vic 20 was hooked up to a black and white TV and had a tape recorder for a storage device. Man those were the days!

tom1443

+1 for me on the Commodore 64. Soon after I bought myself a Trash-80 and I thought I was really living large until I built myself an Apple II clone. It was so much fun back then.

gggustafson

AutoCoder and RPG no less!

Gus Gustafson

dpminusa

The very first, circa 1964 - 1970, was an IBM 360 with Assembler and Fortran IV. In the PC world, circa 1980 - 1982, it was an IBM PC with dual floppies and 64K RAM using GW-BASIC. Soon after I switched to Borland Turbo Pascal. Those systems were so limited even when compared to an Android Tablet today.

"Courtesy is the product of a mature, disciplined mind ... ridicule is lack of the same - DPM"

jnlt

assembler on a z80.

RafagaX

Wow! All the responses makes me feel really young, my first development computer (the one ever I did something that could be considered development) was a 386 computer owned by my school (don't rememeber brand) that ran the glorious MS-DOS (unknown version), on it I developed some programs on Logo and stored them on these big 5 1/2 floppy disks. Making the turtle move and draw was amazing back then.

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Mike Ellison

My initial development experiences were with BASIC first,then assembly on a TRS-80 Model 1, complete with 4K of RAM and tape cassette storage. It was a great day when my dad finally buckled under pressure and sprung for the 48K expansion interface.

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Cliff Cooley

ICL 1901 in 1970, getting ready for decimalisation

bwallan

I started in 1969 on a PDP 6 with a huge 6K of drum storage (a 3 ft diameter drum with magnetic material on the outside and (about) a 3" read head). Our group was developing analog to digital converters at the time. During the development we upgraded to a PDP 8 with almost twice the processing power and 8K of memory. Fun times!