How much computer illiterate were you when...
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...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
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away... we technicians were allowed to learn some programming in our free time. Fortran and punch cards of course. So me and a buddy wrote a 'game of life' program that printed the generation patterns on a line printer. We destroyed several trees worth of paper. Now at 71, I still program for fun... (Win 7, C#, intel i7, almost no printing)
73
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And as you hand fed the tape back into a roll you got paper cuts between your thumb and index finger! :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 – ∞)
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The old VAX eh? THats even before my time! :) Sinclair Spectrum and the BBC were the first computers I came across. They were rare beasts before then, very rare.
The PDP was before the VAX, both by DEC. The PDP was the processor that gave birth to the C programming language. When I learned the MACRO-11 Assembler in High School, I did not realize I was learning C. The best ASSEMBLY EVER. Even though we had paper terminals. We had 3 "CRTs", which I quickly started using. Learning that the OS was just a program. That was the moment the light went on. We used RSTS/E Operating System, and by by the time I graduated High School, I had patched the OS in numerous ways (Hidden Files, bypassing NOLOGON) Crazy Times. But I learned how to do so much with that system. Oh, and in homage to VB programmers everywhere, this OS used BASIC Plus for almost all of the system library programs (Login, Logout). They did this by using a weird concept of Interrupts called System function calls. A$ = sys( chr$(6)+ "..." ) It took a single string, the first character was like the interrupt jump table byte (which function), and the rest of the string was parsed. So, 6 for system function, then like a 5 for Kill job, then the job number converted to a string. Really cool Radix50. Wow, that brought back too many memories from 1984-1985...
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Anymore use of TLA's and I will have head out for a KFC!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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The PDP was before the VAX, both by DEC. The PDP was the processor that gave birth to the C programming language. When I learned the MACRO-11 Assembler in High School, I did not realize I was learning C. The best ASSEMBLY EVER. Even though we had paper terminals. We had 3 "CRTs", which I quickly started using. Learning that the OS was just a program. That was the moment the light went on. We used RSTS/E Operating System, and by by the time I graduated High School, I had patched the OS in numerous ways (Hidden Files, bypassing NOLOGON) Crazy Times. But I learned how to do so much with that system. Oh, and in homage to VB programmers everywhere, this OS used BASIC Plus for almost all of the system library programs (Login, Logout). They did this by using a weird concept of Interrupts called System function calls. A$ = sys( chr$(6)+ "..." ) It took a single string, the first character was like the interrupt jump table byte (which function), and the rest of the string was parsed. So, 6 for system function, then like a 5 for Kill job, then the job number converted to a string. Really cool Radix50. Wow, that brought back too many memories from 1984-1985...
That is pretty cool actually. I love this kind of stuff, digging round in the guts of the machine,. its why I write drivers, and why I prefer Linux to Windows, though I have done a lot more on WIndows, you are closer to the real machine. User mode stuff just makes me angry. All you are dealing with is someone elses rules, someone elses wrapper, and someone elses limitations. Working down with the hardware, having to take into account electrical states, ,that's where the fun is./ :)
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Oh yes - initially. You soon learnt how to roll it without getting the cuts.
...until you hit a join and it shaved your fingers... And the Mylar versions were worse: stronger, stiffer and sharper. Would you believe I think I still have a tape repair tool in the attic? :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 – ∞)
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...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
d@nish wrote:
Edit: The sole purpose of this post is to feel young.
You achieved the opposite: When I wrote my first program, windows didn't exist, C++ didn't exist. I did now what an OS was, however: I had the commented assembly listing on my desk! ;P
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto) Point in case: http://www.infoq.com/news/2014/02/apple_gotofail_lessons[^]
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d@nish wrote:
Edit: The sole purpose of this post is to feel young.
You achieved the opposite: When I wrote my first program, windows didn't exist, C++ didn't exist. I did now what an OS was, however: I had the commented assembly listing on my desk! ;P
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto) Point in case: http://www.infoq.com/news/2014/02/apple_gotofail_lessons[^]
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Same here... only it was an Atari 400. I had a few programs written to audio tape that are lost to the ages. Probably taped over with White Lion or Def Leppard :doh: So I was very computer illiterate - the personal computer at that time would have been maybe a Heathkit that you built from the ground up, but that was not my level of dedication. First program? I remember staying up late getting my name to march around the screen in different ways. Good times. Good times *sigh*
Nice musical references!
Ed Bouras wrote:
White Lion or Def Leppard
I did mine on a TI-99/4a. It was great until the cassette interface/modem quit working. I could still write BASIC programs to solve physics and math homework problems...I just couldn't save them...and I couldn't create save points in the Scott Adam's Adventure games. SAV GAM :) Damn good times!
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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Nice musical references!
Ed Bouras wrote:
White Lion or Def Leppard
I did mine on a TI-99/4a. It was great until the cassette interface/modem quit working. I could still write BASIC programs to solve physics and math homework problems...I just couldn't save them...and I couldn't create save points in the Scott Adam's Adventure games. SAV GAM :) Damn good times!
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
Heh. Of course those was my musically misguided years... before I discovered the awesomeness of Rush! I think there are a few Canadian CP'ers here who would agree with that assessment ;) I think my neighbor had a TI-99 that we used to play Tunnels of DoomClickety[] on. Loved that game!
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...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
My buddy who got me started on computers had given me the book on assembler programming a PDP-8. For two weeks I struggled, trying to understand registers, opcodes, and binary. He and his buddy took me to the computer center and while he was off doing something on another computer, his buddy says, "Psst, wanna write a program?" He started FOCAL and had me type
1.1 Type "HELLO."
Now type "GO" and press Return. It printed
HELLO
I yelled, "THAT'S IT? That's all I have to do?!?" And I was off to the races.
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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I wrote a sorting program on a Flexowriter and fed the paper tape it into EDSAC 2 at Cambridge University c. 1963. All that I knew about computers was from popular reading about "electronic brains" and the lectures I received from Maurice Wilkes - great researcher but very boring teacher! So I guess I was pretty illiterate!
Peter Grogono wrote:
reading about "electronic brains"
I have this book, "Electronic Brains" written in 1945 in my library. It states the estimated worldwide market for computers was for maybe as many as five of them.
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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...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
black screen!? That's funny! When I was 14, I didn't know what a computer was. When I was a freshman in college I heard they had a computer that no student would ever get near. My junior and senior year had no room for silliness but I still got to see a computer that was booted from paper tape and you could write assembler to it. I basically flat-lined my last semester I had to drop out of a 3 point lab because I needed the time to finish my other classwork. I'd spent 4 semesters at over 20 points per and now I had to spend a whole semester for 3 points. No, I'm going to do something more. So I signed up for computer classes, something completely useless, certainly nothing that business was interested in. Screens!!! Try typing code on cards, turning them in in the evening, getting them back the next day. The whole compile ruined by a typo. So, I finally graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and I got my first job (computer programmer) by building a fence. I spent almost a year where you turned your cards in (morning or night, made no difference) and the next day you get your printout. Before you turned them in, you had to create them. With 60 progammers in the building and one keypunch machine we could use, we generally gave the punching to the keypunch pool where you turn it in in the morning and get it back in the evening. 2 years after starting, I transfered to people who needed more of a scientific background. The computer stored files!!!! I had a 300 baud teletype. That meant I could talk directly to the computer. I could ask it to compile and run and in a few seconds I got results. !!!screens!!!, no heat sensitive paper that at best, in theory, produced 30 characters a second, but in reality almost 2 a second, certainly faster than I could type, but not much. Microsoft showed up over a decade after I graduated and it took them a while to come up with the windows OS.
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My buddy who got me started on computers had given me the book on assembler programming a PDP-8. For two weeks I struggled, trying to understand registers, opcodes, and binary. He and his buddy took me to the computer center and while he was off doing something on another computer, his buddy says, "Psst, wanna write a program?" He started FOCAL and had me type
1.1 Type "HELLO."
Now type "GO" and press Return. It printed
HELLO
I yelled, "THAT'S IT? That's all I have to do?!?" And I was off to the races.
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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Peter Grogono wrote:
reading about "electronic brains"
I have this book, "Electronic Brains" written in 1945 in my library. It states the estimated worldwide market for computers was for maybe as many as five of them.
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.
The book I remember best was "Faster than Thought", edited by B V Bowden and published in 1953. I was about 12 when I read it and I did not understand very much!
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OK, if we skip over my TRS-80 Basic days, and some assembler, we get to my first C program. It was a port of an assembler for a dedicated terminal, to be written in C for an IBM PC. Now, at that time, Beyond "printf", I had know idea at all about the C standard library, particularly, I knew nothing about malloc & free, so everything was hard allocated as module level variables. I wrote at length about it before: http://herbsutter.com/2011/10/16/your-first-c-program/#comment-3822[^] I also dug up the source code to my SECOND major C program (circa 1989), and posted in on GitHub: https://github.com/jamescurran/HonestIllusion/tree/master/PCT[^]
Truth, James
James Curran wrote:
I had know idea at all
Phonetically correct, but contextually incorrect.
correct:
I had no idea at all
Someone else wrote "I now that..." which is both phonetically and contextually incorrect. I have no idea why I didn't feel compelled to correct him two(sic) (There is so much trampling of the English language, I had to get into the act.)
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Peter Grogono wrote:
reading about "electronic brains"
I have this book, "Electronic Brains" written in 1945 in my library. It states the estimated worldwide market for computers was for maybe as many as five of them.
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.
IP addresses were defined much later, so it's capacity is much greater than 5. When it was defined it was determined it would have all the communication addresses computers would ever need. Shows how good we humans are at capacity planning when it comes to computers.
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Does knowing to draw a diagonal line across the card deck count so the code still ran after dropping it on the floor?
In this day when downloads under 1MBS is slow, I wonder how many people know that a card deck box could only hold about 40K. (500 cards, 80 bytes per card. Oh yeah signed bytes, 9 holes per byte) Many full length programs were less than half a box or reading half a box could take over 10 seconds
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...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
A few lines of Fortran in 1966 to calculate pi to 100 places on a CDC 3200 using the ArcTan expansion which I'd just learned. Most digits were zero, so I learned something about precision.
