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  3. How much computer illiterate were you when...

How much computer illiterate were you when...

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  • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

    There wasn't even a damn keyboard, half the time! :laugh:

    Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

    C Offline
    C Offline
    chriselst
    wrote on last edited by
    #21

    That was my point, the concept of computer literacy has changed over time as computers have evolved. I could do everything I needed to with my C64, so I was Computer Literate, but I wasn't for the modern definition that was in the mind of the OP. For those of you who started off shoveling coal into the things whilst someone else opened and closed the valves whilst a third operator carefully monitored the weasel levels the question makes even less sense.

    Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.

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    • L Lost User

      I didn't get interested in programming until I had already been using computers for several years. And I didn't even start programming on a PC, I started on a TI-84+. When I started programming on a PC, it was z80 asm, for TI-84+. By the time I finally started writing programs for PCs, I was pretty computer literate, in a Windows-centric way.

      OriginalGriffO Offline
      OriginalGriffO Offline
      OriginalGriff
      wrote on last edited by
      #22

      .NOLIST
      #define EQU .equ
      #define equ .equ
      #define END .end
      #define end .end
      #include "ti83plus.inc"
      .LIST

       .org 9D93h
       .db $BB,$6D
        xor a
        ld (CURCOL),a
        ld (CURROW),a
        ld hl,text
        B\_CALL(\_PutS)
        ret
      

      text:
      .db "Hello, Harold!",0

      .end
      end

      Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

      "I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
      "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt

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      0
      • D dan sh

        ...you wrote your first program? In my case, I had no idea what operating system is. I did not knew I was using windows. Hell, I could not even start a computer. It was really scary. However, if someone could open the "black screen" for me, I could write C++ programs for them. This was the state for a long time. I was proud of myself thinking I could do anything in C++ but had no clue how to reach that black screen. I say anything as I was easily able to understand concept of pointer and templates and was even able to do graphics code. I thought I was awesome back then in year 2000. How about you? Edit: The sole purpose of this post is to feel young. ;P

        L Offline
        L Offline
        Lost User
        wrote on last edited by
        #23

        My first program was written when some company brought a box and some cards with holes in them into school and said they could have it if one of their kids could write a program for it. I hadn't even heard of the word computer back then. No idea even what language I wrote it in, the ultimate in cut and paste, if you can call it that with a hole punch!

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        • C chriselst

          Define Computer Literacy. When I wrote my first program I could plug the Commodore 64 into the TV, turn it on, get to the bit to type in the code and then run it. There wasn't a lot else to do, I could also put the tapes for the games into the tape player to load and then start the games.

          Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.

          P Offline
          P Offline
          Paul Conrad
          wrote on last edited by
          #24

          Yes, those there the good ol' days :-D

          "I've seen more information on a frickin' sticky note!" - Dave Kreskowiak

          1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • D dan sh

            ...you wrote your first program? In my case, I had no idea what operating system is. I did not knew I was using windows. Hell, I could not even start a computer. It was really scary. However, if someone could open the "black screen" for me, I could write C++ programs for them. This was the state for a long time. I was proud of myself thinking I could do anything in C++ but had no clue how to reach that black screen. I say anything as I was easily able to understand concept of pointer and templates and was even able to do graphics code. I thought I was awesome back then in year 2000. How about you? Edit: The sole purpose of this post is to feel young. ;P

            P Offline
            P Offline
            Paul Conrad
            wrote on last edited by
            #25

            I started off with a Timex Sinclair computer in 1980 or so with a black and white t.v. set as the display and a cassette drive as the "mass" storage ;P

            "I've seen more information on a frickin' sticky note!" - Dave Kreskowiak

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            • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

              I had nearly forgotten: My Uni course was a "thin sandwich" - 6 months Uni, 6 months industry - and my first industrial training was this the Atlas Computer Division of the Rutherford Labs, a UK government research institution. At the end of the training a report on my work was sent to the college: "Was determined to find out 'all about computers' and showed great ingenuity in doing so" It wasn't a compliment. :-O

              Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

              L Offline
              L Offline
              Lost User
              wrote on last edited by
              #26

              Hey Griff, I was at Rutherford 83-87. Any overlap?

              OriginalGriffO 1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • Kornfeld Eliyahu PeterK Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter

                I knew nothing of computer when I got my C64 and started to do some basic and assembly (I got a book with)... I learned side-by-side about how to use and how to program.

                I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)

                P Offline
                P Offline
                Paul Conrad
                wrote on last edited by
                #27

                I still have the book that came with my C64 around here somewhere, probably buried deep in the attic somewhere. Might be time to go treasure hunting :laugh:

                "I've seen more information on a frickin' sticky note!" - Dave Kreskowiak

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                • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

                  .NOLIST
                  #define EQU .equ
                  #define equ .equ
                  #define END .end
                  #define end .end
                  #include "ti83plus.inc"
                  .LIST

                   .org 9D93h
                   .db $BB,$6D
                    xor a
                    ld (CURCOL),a
                    ld (CURROW),a
                    ld hl,text
                    B\_CALL(\_PutS)
                    ret
                  

                  text:
                  .db "Hello, Harold!",0

                  .end
                  end

                  Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

                  P Offline
                  P Offline
                  Paul Conrad
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #28

                  I found something very strikingly similar on wikibooks about TI83 Assembly :cool:

                  "I've seen more information on a frickin' sticky note!" - Dave Kreskowiak

                  OriginalGriffO 1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

                    .NOLIST
                    #define EQU .equ
                    #define equ .equ
                    #define END .end
                    #define end .end
                    #include "ti83plus.inc"
                    .LIST

                     .org 9D93h
                     .db $BB,$6D
                      xor a
                      ld (CURCOL),a
                      ld (CURROW),a
                      ld hl,text
                      B\_CALL(\_PutS)
                      ret
                    

                    text:
                    .db "Hello, Harold!",0

                    .end
                    end

                    Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

                    L Offline
                    L Offline
                    Lost User
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #29

                    So, you're a TASM user? That's getting quite rare, Brass and SPASM are so much better that almost everyone switched.

                    OriginalGriffO 1 Reply Last reply
                    0
                    • L Lost User

                      Hey Griff, I was at Rutherford 83-87. Any overlap?

                      OriginalGriffO Offline
                      OriginalGriffO Offline
                      OriginalGriff
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #30

                      No - I was there the summer of '78, working for Rob Witty on Dimensional Flowcharting.

                      Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

                      "I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
                      "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt

                      1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • P Paul Conrad

                        I found something very strikingly similar on wikibooks about TI83 Assembly :cool:

                        "I've seen more information on a frickin' sticky note!" - Dave Kreskowiak

                        OriginalGriffO Offline
                        OriginalGriffO Offline
                        OriginalGriff
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #31

                        Thats probably where I stole it from - but I made it more efficient: the original used "ld a,0" which is one M state and 3 T states slower, and uses a whole extra byte in memory! :laugh:

                        Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

                        "I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
                        "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • D dan sh

                          ...you wrote your first program? In my case, I had no idea what operating system is. I did not knew I was using windows. Hell, I could not even start a computer. It was really scary. However, if someone could open the "black screen" for me, I could write C++ programs for them. This was the state for a long time. I was proud of myself thinking I could do anything in C++ but had no clue how to reach that black screen. I say anything as I was easily able to understand concept of pointer and templates and was even able to do graphics code. I thought I was awesome back then in year 2000. How about you? Edit: The sole purpose of this post is to feel young. ;P

                          R Offline
                          R Offline
                          Ravi Bhavnani
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #32

                          Not very. Wrote my first program in Pascal on a Multics time-sharing system using punch cards (1980) before graduating to a VAX in 1981. /ravi

                          My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

                          M 1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • L Lost User

                            So, you're a TASM user? That's getting quite rare, Brass and SPASM are so much better that almost everyone switched.

                            OriginalGriffO Offline
                            OriginalGriffO Offline
                            OriginalGriff
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #33

                            No - I haven't touched Z80 in years - and most of mine was IAR Z80 cross assembler/C compiler (Gawd damn it's rotten, black heart, may it rot in silicon Hades) I stole that because I needed a Z80 environment you would be familiar with: my code was all home brewed on custom hardware and probably wouldn't have made a whole lot of sense to most people:

                            disp equ 4000h
                            #ORG 8000h
                            text: defs "Hello Harold!"
                            defb 0
                            textl equ $-text
                            #ORG 0000h
                            INI:
                            ld de,disp
                            ld b, 30
                            LOOP:
                            push de
                            push bc
                            ld hl,text
                            ld bc,textl
                            ldir
                            pop bc
                            pop hl
                            ld de, 80
                            add hl, de
                            ex hl, de
                            djnz LOOP

                            Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

                            "I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
                            "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt

                            L 1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

                              No - I haven't touched Z80 in years - and most of mine was IAR Z80 cross assembler/C compiler (Gawd damn it's rotten, black heart, may it rot in silicon Hades) I stole that because I needed a Z80 environment you would be familiar with: my code was all home brewed on custom hardware and probably wouldn't have made a whole lot of sense to most people:

                              disp equ 4000h
                              #ORG 8000h
                              text: defs "Hello Harold!"
                              defb 0
                              textl equ $-text
                              #ORG 0000h
                              INI:
                              ld de,disp
                              ld b, 30
                              LOOP:
                              push de
                              push bc
                              ld hl,text
                              ld bc,textl
                              ldir
                              pop bc
                              pop hl
                              ld de, 80
                              add hl, de
                              ex hl, de
                              djnz LOOP

                              Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

                              L Offline
                              L Offline
                              Lost User
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #34

                              A 80x30 textmode screen memory-mapped at 4000h? Makes enough sense, very different from a TI-84+ (and its highly annoying display) though obviously.

                              OriginalGriffO 1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • D dan sh

                                ...you wrote your first program? In my case, I had no idea what operating system is. I did not knew I was using windows. Hell, I could not even start a computer. It was really scary. However, if someone could open the "black screen" for me, I could write C++ programs for them. This was the state for a long time. I was proud of myself thinking I could do anything in C++ but had no clue how to reach that black screen. I say anything as I was easily able to understand concept of pointer and templates and was even able to do graphics code. I thought I was awesome back then in year 2000. How about you? Edit: The sole purpose of this post is to feel young. ;P

                                P Offline
                                P Offline
                                PIEBALDconsult
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #35

                                d@nish wrote:

                                I could not even start a computer

                                I still don't know how to start a PDP-11 (running RSTS/E), but I quickly learned how to crash one. :cool: (1983) Then on my first few jobs I was a System Manager for some VAX and Alpha (and Stratus) systems, so I became proficient at that. Today I work with a bunch of virtual Windows Servers on VMware and I wouldn't be able to start them myself.

                                You'll never get very far if all you do is follow instructions.

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                                • D dan sh

                                  ...you wrote your first program? In my case, I had no idea what operating system is. I did not knew I was using windows. Hell, I could not even start a computer. It was really scary. However, if someone could open the "black screen" for me, I could write C++ programs for them. This was the state for a long time. I was proud of myself thinking I could do anything in C++ but had no clue how to reach that black screen. I say anything as I was easily able to understand concept of pointer and templates and was even able to do graphics code. I thought I was awesome back then in year 2000. How about you? Edit: The sole purpose of this post is to feel young. ;P

                                  S Offline
                                  S Offline
                                  S Houghtelin
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #36

                                  I was in 5th grade and we used HP Educational Basic punch cards. Had no idea how they worked, some guy would come in with a card reader and a Teletype to remote to a main frame at the nearby college. I do remember is that to get closer to the front of the line one could surreptitiously remove a card and replace it to a different location in the program stack of the kid in front of you. This way the card reader would reject the program stack prior to executing the program. :suss:

                                  It was broke, so I fixed it.

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • D dan sh

                                    ...you wrote your first program? In my case, I had no idea what operating system is. I did not knew I was using windows. Hell, I could not even start a computer. It was really scary. However, if someone could open the "black screen" for me, I could write C++ programs for them. This was the state for a long time. I was proud of myself thinking I could do anything in C++ but had no clue how to reach that black screen. I say anything as I was easily able to understand concept of pointer and templates and was even able to do graphics code. I thought I was awesome back then in year 2000. How about you? Edit: The sole purpose of this post is to feel young. ;P

                                    L Offline
                                    L Offline
                                    Lost User
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #37

                                    That was in 1978 with a TRS-80 in a Radio Shack. I knew nothing, but that did not stop me from looking into the manual and trying things out.

                                    The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
                                    I hold an A-7 computer expert classification, Commodore. I'm well acquainted with Dr. Daystrom's theories and discoveries. The basic design of all our ship's computers are JavaScript.

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                                    • L Lost User

                                      A 80x30 textmode screen memory-mapped at 4000h? Makes enough sense, very different from a TI-84+ (and its highly annoying display) though obviously.

                                      OriginalGriffO Offline
                                      OriginalGriffO Offline
                                      OriginalGriff
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #38

                                      Yeah, with a separate attributes plane mapped at 0x5000 - so a massive hole in the memory preventing the EPROM being bigger than 16Kb... and no MMU in those days! I loved the HD64180 when we started using that because of the 1Mb memory space and a built in MMU. Bliss! And the SIO came in handy too. I was still using that in some new equipment designs in 2000, in its 32MHz form (purely because of the legacy Z80 code base, I moved to Arm processors as quickly as I could)

                                      Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

                                      "I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
                                      "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt

                                      H 1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      • D dan sh

                                        ...you wrote your first program? In my case, I had no idea what operating system is. I did not knew I was using windows. Hell, I could not even start a computer. It was really scary. However, if someone could open the "black screen" for me, I could write C++ programs for them. This was the state for a long time. I was proud of myself thinking I could do anything in C++ but had no clue how to reach that black screen. I say anything as I was easily able to understand concept of pointer and templates and was even able to do graphics code. I thought I was awesome back then in year 2000. How about you? Edit: The sole purpose of this post is to feel young. ;P

                                        S Offline
                                        S Offline
                                        Steve Mayfield
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #39

                                        I was given a copy of an IBM FORTRAN reference manual in the late 1960s from one of my Boy Scout merit badge mentors and until my first programming class in college, I thought FORTRAN was a IBM computer model...found out quickly in class that it was a computer language :doh:

                                        Steve _________________ I C(++) therefore I am

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                                        • D dan sh

                                          ...you wrote your first program? In my case, I had no idea what operating system is. I did not knew I was using windows. Hell, I could not even start a computer. It was really scary. However, if someone could open the "black screen" for me, I could write C++ programs for them. This was the state for a long time. I was proud of myself thinking I could do anything in C++ but had no clue how to reach that black screen. I say anything as I was easily able to understand concept of pointer and templates and was even able to do graphics code. I thought I was awesome back then in year 2000. How about you? Edit: The sole purpose of this post is to feel young. ;P

                                          M Offline
                                          M Offline
                                          Marc Clifton
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #40

                                          I was playing around with flip-flops (the IC's, not the footwear), timers and logic gates before I ever wrote my first program. I cut my programming teeth using BASIC on a PDP-11 and had a pretty thorough understanding of how the machine worked at the ripe old age of 13. I ditched BASIC in favor of 6502 assembly language on the PET and C-64, and then other processors, so I was working always close to the hardware (it was the nature of the work I was getting.) Marc

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