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  3. How old were you when you first wrote a line of code ?

How old were you when you first wrote a line of code ?

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  • C Captain Price

    :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

    "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

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    Loki020677
    wrote on last edited by
    #142

    I was 6 years old on a Sinclair ZX81 Basic.

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    • C Captain Price

      :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

      "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

      L Offline
      L Offline
      l_d_allan
      wrote on last edited by
      #143

      17, which is NBD (no big deal), but I'd just turned 17 back in the summer of 1968 between my junior and senior year in HS. Taking "introduction to engineering nsf" classes at OSU. FORTRAN with 029 punch-card with IBM 7090 main-frame, iirc. One job-card a day. "You kids have it sooooo easy." :-) Went from being a "wrench" day-dreaming about Corvettes and Z/28's and figuring to eventually work in Detroit, to absolutely gob-smacked by these new-fangled computers. A life changing experience. TMI? ... I can recall my at-the-time GF experiencing MEGO (my eyes glaze over) while I explained ... in detail ... how a software program to find "perfect right-angle integer triangles" worked. That was pretty much the end of that. Sigh.

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      • R Ron Beyer

        12 or so, spent a lot of time doing weird things with QBasic and TrueBasic.

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        msz900
        wrote on last edited by
        #144

        hmmm.. may be iam 18 year's old at that time.

        MSZ

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        • C Captain Price

          :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

          "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

          R Offline
          R Offline
          Ryan Speakman
          wrote on last edited by
          #145

          12 years old in 1979 on an Atari 400, if you can believe that. Not even a 5.25-inch diskette - It was a BASIC cartridge! A few years ago I tracked down an old Atari 400 on eBay that I now display proudly in my office... Isn't it funny how most of us started programming around puberty? Explains so much about my love life!! :laugh:

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          • C Captain Price

            :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

            "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

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            D Offline
            DelnarLt
            wrote on last edited by
            #146

            I was around 7 years old with a Timex Synclair. From their to a kaypro and a TRS-80 CoCo 2.

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            • R Ron Beyer

              12 or so, spent a lot of time doing weird things with QBasic and TrueBasic.

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              hornk
              wrote on last edited by
              #147

              Maybe 20. Hand assembled machine code on the Altair 8800 I'd just built from a kit.

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              • C Captain Price

                :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

                "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

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                O Offline
                Old Ed
                wrote on last edited by
                #148

                15, using Fortran. Assembler quickly followed. I was working at a summer job. This led to a full-time job.

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                • C Captain Price

                  :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

                  "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

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                  M Offline
                  MTWill
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #149

                  Age 14, in 1980 or so. Wrote my own game programs in BASIC on the junior high school's lone computer: a Radio Shack TRS-80 -- with audio cassette storage!

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                  • C Captain Price

                    :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

                    "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

                    F Offline
                    F Offline
                    fglenn
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #150

                    I was 17, but this was in 1962. Well before the existence of personal computers.

                    Fletcher Glenn

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                    • C Captain Price

                      :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

                      "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

                      V Offline
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                      Vernam7
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #151

                      10 or so, GWBASIC! 10 CLS 20 PRINT "hi John" 'how care about the world :P

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                      • C Captain Price

                        :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

                        "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

                        M Offline
                        M Offline
                        Mike Riley QUSA
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #152

                        15, which isn't the youngest I see here, but then it was in 1973. We had access to the LA City Schools HP 3000C and were locked into the Basic interpreter. Connected to it through an ASR-33 teletype via modem @ 100Baud. Programs were kept on paper tape, because we had no way to store files and we had a spare TTY to create tapes on. Aside from various class programs I wrote a version of the Star Trek game, plus we had a version of Life we kept trying to improve on.

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                        • C Captain Price

                          :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

                          "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

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                          U Offline
                          User 9701419
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #153

                          18. My job was basically data entry but within 6 months I'd automated my job with VBA and Python and also learned C++, VB.NET and C#. Got a raise and a bonus. I've never enjoyed anything as much as I enjoy programming. I'm only 19 now, so a long road ahead of me.

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                          • C Captain Price

                            :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

                            "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

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                            TheGDog
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #154

                            Commodore-64 Baby! \m/

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                            • C Captain Price

                              :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

                              "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

                              C Offline
                              C Offline
                              curt powell
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #155

                              13 y.o. in 1969. Programmed a H-P 9100 using magnetic cards. Little did I know...

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                              • C Captain Price

                                :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

                                "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

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                                U Offline
                                User 7709597
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #156

                                I was ten. My father had switched professions was working on IBM 360/ RCA Spectra 70 FORTRAN. I took a programmed learning course on FORTRAN and helped my dad debug his programs. My mother became a keypunch operator when we moved to Oregon so my favorite past time was the whole family, after hours, went to where Mom and Dad worked. My brother and I would write cards and play with the logic breadboards. I may not have accomplished much at 10, but fast forward 50 years and I am still writing Windows programs. Whee!

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                                • C Captain Price

                                  :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

                                  "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

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                                  P Offline
                                  Peltier Cooler
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #157

                                  Fifty-four, I think. I cracked open Teach Yourself Visual Basic in 24 Hours and surprised myself by enjoying it. I don't have a lot of time to devote to it, but I have done a lot in the little time since, learning Android programming and Visual C# (which my employer uses) and actual WSH for my Day Job (tm). like other languages, I suggest starting much, much younger. Childhood is probably too late. ;)

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                                  • C Captain Price

                                    :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

                                    "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

                                    B Offline
                                    B Offline
                                    BrainiacV
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #158

                                    15, pre-high school (high school where I'm from started at 10th grade) in FOCAL-8. I didn't have access to computers before then otherwise it would have been 5-10 minutes after birth. :cool: A buddy I had met through a model rocketry club had a card deck with him at one of the meetings. I expressed interest and he said he was going to teach me right. He gave me a book on PDP-8 Assembler. For two weeks I struggled with with bits, words, and opcodes and barely got the rationale. One night, we went out to the computer center with another friend of his. While he was in the computer room running a program on the IBM 1403, his buddy said, "Psst, wanna write a program?" Of course I said yes. He said type FOCAL, once it came up he said now type 1.1 T "HELLO" and then GO. It printed "HELLO". I screamed, "THAT'S IT? THAT'S ALL I HAVE TO DO?" And I was off to the races. It did help, the weeks I attempted to learn Assembly, I knew it was underneath everything I was doing and before the school year was out I had moved to BASIC and then Assembler.

                                    Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.

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                                    • C Captain Price

                                      :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

                                      "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

                                      D Offline
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                                      Diego Briones Cortes
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #159

                                      Does LOGO on Commodore 64 count? If it does, I was 8. If not, I was 15 when I wrote my first line in Turbo Pascal. Saludos....

                                      Diego

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                                      • C Captain Price

                                        :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

                                        "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

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                                        aaronlupo
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #160

                                        My dad started me off at the ripe old age of 5. Apple IIe, BASIC. :)

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                                        • C Captain Price

                                          :-D :sigh: :zzz: :wtf:

                                          "If A is a success in life, then A=x+y+z. (Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.)"

                                          C Offline
                                          C Offline
                                          Cj Welborn
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #161

                                          I was 10. My mom gave me a book full of BASIC games. The idea was you copy the code, modify it, and learn how to program. I used QBasic because it was already installed in Windows 3.1. I never fully learned BASIC, just the 'basics' you could say. But it did peek my interest, and later on down the road when I saw this thing called 'Visual Basic 3.0', and what I could do with it, I was hooked. I know a couple languages now, and enough about C/C++ to do some damage. If it wasn't for that book I wouldn't know any languages, nor would I care to.

                                          -Cj import this; import that; del that

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