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

User 4570113

I was 14 50 years ago. It was a machine with only code punching on a punch card. Punching single holes in it. The program was 1st upper half of the card, then the lower part of it.

Martin Berger

On my Commodore 64 when I was 17.

dpminusa

Not until 18. Late bloomer. That was in 1964, so the only places to get access before you had a job were Universities.

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

MSHYYC

I was 7 years old. It was on a Bell+Howell computer at school (which was an Apple II+ painted black, with different badge and a "suitcsae handle" with proper paddle ports and ectra A/V connectors on the back). It was actually not Applesoft nor Integer BASIC either; it was in LOGO, to draw a square with the "turtle". The next year we had two Commodore 64s placed in our classroom. Students interested in using them at lunch hour had to get a "computer license" from our homeroom teacher--he would provide us with a lesson and have us write a quiz. Then we got a little laminated card as our "license to compute". We would sign up for a turn to use one of the C64s during the lunch hour/recess first come first served up to a maximum number of times a month (since about 10 kids were "licensed" and there were 2 computers you could not used them daily). The "license" was invented by the teacher basically to teach the rules of using the computers properly and to restrict access to the computers by the less responsible students. I wrote LOGO and Basic code on the C64. I was 9 when we got our first computer at home--a Coleco ADAM. I wrote SmartBASIC (Applesoft compatible BASIC port with some mods to take advantage of ADAM's superior graphics and sound), SmartLOGO and MBASIC on CP/M (which the ADAM ran as an alternative to the built in EOS operating system). That was when I first wrote code on my very own computer. I wrote my first line of assembly code on the ADAM (Z80 assembly). All this happened before QBasic (I wrote that first line of assembly the summer before QuickBASIC 1.0 was released), and before my introduction to the MS-DOS world of computing. Guess that makes me younger than a few here, but older than many.

BotReject

About 13, on a VIC-20 computer. I still program as a hobby, only mostly in C++, C#, Java, PHP and JavaScript these days.

Alan Burkhart

I was in my 20s in 1983 and my sister in-law gave me this TI 99-4A. I was hooked inside of 30 minutes.

XAlan Burkhart

Earl Truss

Let's see ... I was a junior in college and decided to take a FORTRAN programming class because I had heard about computers from a friend who was taking a COBOL class. That would make me .. uh .. 20 at the time. It was the class that made me decide to program for a living. Now I can hardly wait to stop doing it.

patbob

I still have an unpunched punch card. And that's as much as I'll say on the matter :)

We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.

andychurchill

If I have my dates right, 1991, aged 11. I know we stayed at my uncle's house when Terminator 2 came out at the cinema when we were staying at their house one year, but it might have been a year or two earlier than that. It was Sinclair Basic. My uncle introduced me to coding. He wasn't even a programmer himself, actually a deep sea diver, but had been writing utilities to help with the day job. My cousin, a good few years than older me, also showed me how to create a loading screen. He didn't become a programmer either. But I was hooked after that. Managed to get my parents to buy me a C64 so I could learn more at home.

Andrew Code R

I remember it well - 1981 with a Sinclair ZX81. I was 11 years old and had to teach myself, which as it turns out was the best way to learn to program :-D

Steve Mayfield

18, in college - personal computers were still 5 years away

Steve _________________ I C(++) therefore I am

User 10271622

Same here, except I didn't have any idea of I was doing at the time. PCM, ftw! ("PC Magazine") They had a bunch of qbasic code in the back of each magazine for different games.

Cloud William

I was 16, in high school, 1973. Programmable calculator called Compucorp 025, about the size of an IBM Selectric typewriter (anybody remember typewriters?) with 10-key numeric entry. The program was read from punch cards, the language was assembler. It was like a drug. I haven't been able to stop since.

Chad3F

9 +/- 1, on a Commodore 64.

obermd

In 11th grade I purchased a TI-89 programmable calculator. It had a magnetic card reader that allowed you to store programs for later reload and use. Learned programming on it.

1stFalloutBoy

6 Years old, on a Commodore PET at a local Polytech.

berrymaria

I didn't knock C. Why should I knock C? It's my first programming language learned. And I'm so thankful to it. Learning C is my foundation on learning other languages. X| is for myself.

ChenShaoHsi

14 Ha ha~~ :laugh: use Qbasic. for i = 1 to 10 print i next

RineezTVM

I was 10 or 11 years old. It also started with BASIC and loved it! I was an avid fan of Qbasic until I got to college and understood why complicated languages like C or C++ matters.

syntotic

I was nine when I made my first run of asterisks in a home made computer in school which I suspect had only two instructions, print and for loop. Then Apple was introduced and I went right away to make a programmatic animation, and to start writing the browser text flowing code; much of it went into paper, machine time was more important for games! :mad: