How much computer illiterate were you when...
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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.
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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
I was just full of awesomeness when I wrote a complete calculator emulator (complete with transcendent functions) using CDL (Computer Design Language) running on a CDC Cyber 74 mainframe back in 1977. I aced that class. The prof said he didn't believe I could pull it off it had never been done before. It did cost me an F in all my other courses that quarter but it sure was worth it! :) Edit: Oh, you said how ILLITERATE was I ... OK, I didn't yet know what a CRT terminal was. I wrote the whole thing using an 029 keypunch, card reader (of course) and line printer.
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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
1986 I was 3, wrote a batch file to display hello world, I understood that the operating system was called disk os aka DOS because I had to load the floppy's one at a time as the computer loaded as there were no hard drives. Everyone before the year 2000 grew up with the technology and understand it before we use it.
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I should say I wanted to feel young. I have no clue what you all are blabbering about. I wan't even born at that time.
http://www.c64-wiki.de/index.php/COMMODORE_plus/4_ROM-LISTING[^] Note: I only now realized the comments were actually in german, and that there apparently was no equivalent book in english. Would explain why you didn't know about it - putting the being born thingy aside ;)
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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I was just full of awesomeness when I wrote a complete calculator emulator (complete with transcendent functions) using CDL (Computer Design Language) running on a CDC Cyber 74 mainframe back in 1977. I aced that class. The prof said he didn't believe I could pull it off it had never been done before. It did cost me an F in all my other courses that quarter but it sure was worth it! :) Edit: Oh, you said how ILLITERATE was I ... OK, I didn't yet know what a CRT terminal was. I wrote the whole thing using an 029 keypunch, card reader (of course) and line printer.
029 keypunch? That were looxury! We had 026s only.
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029 keypunch? That were looxury! We had 026s only.
Well, at Ga Tech we had both, but the 029's were, of course, the first ones taken! ;)
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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
Windows was something you looked through when I wrote my first program, which was in FORTRAN, punched in cards and run on an IBM/360. I knew something about the operating system and assembler and bytes and bits and Boolean. My Dad was designing a home computer with transistors on printed circuit boards and showed his design to me.
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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
In very old times (when I was about six years old) I didn't know what is. We had http://www.pravetz.info/pravetz-8c.html[^] (information on the page is wrong, memory was 64KB of which 16KB was reserved for ROM, so there was only 48KB usable). There was three way to use that computer: 1. As user, you load 5.25" diskette in the floppy drive and it shows a bunch of programs - some of them games. 2. There was an interpreter for GW-BASIC language. 3. Program in machine language. Not assembly, you must write bytes in hex notation at specific address. You can list the bytes as instruction later. What I know (at six) about mathematics was sum and subtract one-digit numbers and due to my curiosity I was taught how to sum and subtract two digit number and the method of multiply by hand (but I didn't know the whole multiplication table). I didn't know what statement, or command, or assembly, or instruction, or programming was.
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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
That's an easy one, didn't have to do much, just plug my ZX80 into a black and white portable TV, switch it on and there was Sinclair basic ready to start typing in. From that point on, for the first few months at least I just copied in magazine & type your own adventure book listings, till I eventually started to learn the syntax and could type my own stuff. Keyboard was a nightmare though. :-) Shawty