What is your WHY in CODING?
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When did you first learn to code and why? I learned in 2012 and my WHY is to hopefully be successful one day in helping millions.
I was in college to become an EE (back in the 70s) and came across Byte magazine. Started reading about these new things call microprocessors and decided I could build a board with one of these, so I did (with a z80 processor). It was finished the day after my last final senior year. All I did for the next 3 weeks (until the start of my new job) was learn to program it. I had a whole 4K of RAM and a 2K EPROM containing the Zapple monitor program. There was no programming language so I was programming machine code by the numbers, poking values into memory, executing code at specified address, dump memory, etc. It was fascinating! At the new job, they were just starting to design a microprocessor base (Motorola 6800) smoke detector tester/calibrator. When they found out I had a computer at home, they asked me if I wanted to work on that project (of freaking course!!). I've been designing/programming ever since, mostly embedded systems.
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My first lines of codes were written in 1983 or 1984; at that time I had a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A computer, and the language was (extended) BASIC. Why? Because coding is just awesome :)
"I'm neither for nor against, on the contrary." John Middle
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I went the same path but started with a commodore 64 and went via SuperBase before I got into VB.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
This might be of interest to you: The Official C64 website – The World’s Best-selling Home Computer – Reborn![^]
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When did you first learn to code and why? I learned in 2012 and my WHY is to hopefully be successful one day in helping millions.
I taught myself BASIC from a book my dad had on Dartmouth Basic back in 1978. Why? Why do you do anything when you're 14 -- because I wanted to.
I live in Oregon, and I'm an engineer.
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When did you first learn to code and why? I learned in 2012 and my WHY is to hopefully be successful one day in helping millions.
My first coding was was in 1981 when some office donated a boatload of Commodore Pet 2001 Series computers to the school district I was in. My middle school math teacher ended up with them in his room, and offered to stay an extra hour after school every day to give anyone access to them that wanted it, in exchange for $20 a head, while letting us all know he knew nothing about them. One of my friends manages to get his hands on a manual from his dad's office, and we all started teaching ourselves Commodore Basic. The next year, we all signed up for the "all new" computer class at the High School. They didn't really teach us anything. The teacher just came in and told us to do whatever we wanted, as long as we each turned in one "educational game/program" each quarter that could be handed over to the grade schools in the district so they could do something with the donated computers. My Sophomore year, I consulted for the district to put their 5x7 index card attendance system into a database program. They bought the database program, and I designed the system (with its amazing 5.24" floppy based data transfer system) and trained all of the attendance secretaries in the district on how to use it. That was also when I learned the value of getting signed contracts before doing any work. :mad::mad: They originally promised me $2000 for the job, but when everything was done, they told me that as a government entity they could not legally pay money to a minor as an independent contractor, but would make sure that I received an A grade in the computer class as compensation for my efforts (as if I wasn't already getting one). Lesson learned. Money makes the world go round ... but documentation moves the money.
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When did you first learn to code and why? I learned in 2012 and my WHY is to hopefully be successful one day in helping millions.
You mean something like: y:=0; y=0; y<-0 set 0 as y Y is in there somewhere. Oh something else. I start in 1983 in High School with an Apple IIe. From there onto Pascal, C, C++, FORTRAN, Lisp, Java, VB.NET, C#, SQL, JavaScript, Python and the list goes on. Of all the WHY in CODING: WHY: FORTRAN code must start on specific column (older one). WHY: VB.NET required _ for line break. WHY: Python code blocks by indentation. WHY: JavaScript "this" is the most confusion of all.
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When did you first learn to code and why? I learned in 2012 and my WHY is to hopefully be successful one day in helping millions.
I took a programming class at Cal Poly when they got their 1st computer (1964-an IBM 1620 w/20K BCD bytes memory), and I got hooked (there was no way I was going to make a living as a Math major). Fortran II and assembly (I still have the instruction set manual-it was small). If you put a handheld radio up next to the console and ran a particular program, it would play 'Flight of the Bumble Bee'. :-)
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When did you first learn to code and why? I learned in 2012 and my WHY is to hopefully be successful one day in helping millions.
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Randy Ga wrote:
When did you first learn to code and why?
Back in the early 90s, I took a computer class in High School because I knew computers would become a big thing and I thought it would be good to help me get into college. It turns out it was a Pascal Programming class and for the first 3 weeks the computers weren't ready so we did everything on the whiteboard. I was so lost and confused, I had no clue what we were doing. Nothing made sense at all. Once the computers were ready and I saw the Pascal compiler and where we were typing in the commands, it all made sense and I've been doing programming ever since.
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it. Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
In the early 80s I just wanted to try something new and via a family member I had an opportunity to try my hand at coding. Over time I learned BASIC (of course), then came writing glossaries for the Wang OIS[^] (you're really old if you remember Wang), Lotus 123 macros and dBase II. Made some money, had some fun, but eventually grew tired of being in an office all day and went back to trucking. Nowadays I just write apps for my own use or the occasional CP article.
Sometimes the true reward for completing a task is not the money, but instead the satisfaction of a job well done. But it's usually the money.
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My first lines of codes were written in 1983 or 1984; at that time I had a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A computer, and the language was (extended) BASIC. Why? Because coding is just awesome :)
"I'm neither for nor against, on the contrary." John Middle
I had a 99. Still have the BASIC manual as a keepsake. In its day it was a great gaming machine.
Sometimes the true reward for completing a task is not the money, but instead the satisfaction of a job well done. But it's usually the money.
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This might be of interest to you: The Official C64 website – The World’s Best-selling Home Computer – Reborn![^]
RickZeeland wrote:
The Official C64 website – The World’s Best-selling Home Computer – Reborn![^]
Noticed in the fine print that the keyboard is nonfunctional, but you can add a USB keyboard.
Sometimes the true reward for completing a task is not the money, but instead the satisfaction of a job well done. But it's usually the money.
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OriginalGriff wrote:
with no heavy lifting
Unless you had one of those "boat anchor" portable computers. :)
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
The Osborn was portable. If you had a forklift. :-D
Sometimes the true reward for completing a task is not the money, but instead the satisfaction of a job well done. But it's usually the money.
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RickZeeland wrote:
The Official C64 website – The World’s Best-selling Home Computer – Reborn![^]
Noticed in the fine print that the keyboard is nonfunctional, but you can add a USB keyboard.
Sometimes the true reward for completing a task is not the money, but instead the satisfaction of a job well done. But it's usually the money.
Guess that's why I never had a Commodore :-\
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When did you first learn to code and why? I learned in 2012 and my WHY is to hopefully be successful one day in helping millions.
At the right age, I got to hear my father on the phone talking to an operator. Changing cards (JCL) in a deck to rerun a job that had thrown a OC7, and that he would be on his way back in. Oh, the mind puzzle. In high school, 1980, we had an IBM 127 card punch. Our teacher would take our deck to the local community college and bring back the green-bar. We were NOT to: 10 I = 1, 20 PRINT I, 30 I = I + 1, 40 GOTO 10. And yet, someone in the class did. I would love to have seen the operator kill that job. Why? Puzzles. From both sides - user wants to do what? ok, now how do I get it to do that. And the world keeps turning, the technology changing
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When did you first learn to code and why? I learned in 2012 and my WHY is to hopefully be successful one day in helping millions.
Learned basic back in the 70s by reading books in the library, don't know why it just captured my imagination. Had a notebook filled with hand written programs but didn't get my first computer (zx81) until 3 or 4 years later. I remember as a teenager being really angry at my dad because they were throwing out an old mainframe at the place he worked and he wouldn't let me have it to keep in the garage!
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I learned in 1967, because I wanted to learn about those newfangled compputer machines. I started getting paid to program in 1972 when I took a job to pay for my university studies.I tutored and taught FORTRAN for several years, then worked for a research commision writing FORTRAN and Algol programs. I started a software business in 1990 after working as an engineer for 15 years.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
Walt: Like you, I started in 1968 when I took a Fortran programming course at IIT. I went on to start writing programs at Argonne National Laboratory for nuclear reactor data collection and simulation. Data collection was done in assembly language for a HP 2115 mini-computer; simulation was done in PL/I on an IBM 360 Model 95 (the super-computer of the day). When Tricky Dicky got elected, our budget was trashed, so I went to work at GTE writing factory automation software for the IBM 1800, Data General Nova, DEC PDP-11, and a few off-brands that nobody has ever heard of. I found I had a knack for developing operating system software and communications systems. So I started my own software business in 1980. I learned that I liked sales, contract negotiation and writing, development, and a lot of other things -- except for people management! People management took me a looonnnnng time to learn and appreciate. For me, learning a new language or system has always been a piece of cake which I attribute to a solid foundation in assembly language. I still do a lot of development on both Windows and Linux systems. The hardest part for me nowadays is the circular definition that all too many people use in their documentation. E.g. "FunctionA -- Invokes FunctionA". Usually lacks any explanation of what FunctionA does, how it does it, what the parameters are, return values and conditions, etc. To me, I want to know the internals so I can be effective and efficient. But that goes against many modern management and implementation models. I could say a lot more...but I won't. My only serious career regret is that I was writing an OS for the Intel 8080 at the same time Bill Gates was writing DOS. My system supported real-time, interrupt driven multi-tasking and multi-programming. I did mine under exclusive contract and did not retain rights of ownership -- Gate was smarter! The company subsequently went out of business. (I could have been rich!)
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I learned to program on a HP 2115 minicomputer whose primary IO methods were paper tape and a teletype. One evening while trying to get something to work, I typed "why" at the command prompt. The computer replied "Why not". Since HP published the source code for the basic OS (HP Assembly Language), I dove in to see if I could find where "why" was being parsed as a legal command. As I remember, it was very well obfuscated using octal constants for both data and executable code. I guess I'll have to go with the HP2115's answer to the question Why? Why not!
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Started on HP 2116B, 8K memory, ASR33 TTY, 75 IPS tape drive, 200 channels slow speed DAC, 12 channels of 100K high speed DAC. One manual covered hardware and software.
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I designed and built a ADC card. We were recording nerve signals on a high quality multi-channel analog tape recorder, playing it back into the computer at 1/16 speed and doing FFTs and correlations to see how the nerves encoded information.
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They were manipulating a cat's knee joint with a swept sine wave and measuring the activity on a nerve in the upper leg. They found that there were sensors in the knee that were sensitive to both position and velocity, with a hint that there was some sensitivity to acceleration. The data processing was all done in HP's Fortran and took a long time. After they upgraded the computer to a HP 2100, which gave you access to the micro-code, I created a couple of new machine instructions that sped the FFT up by 15%. The 2100 systems also came with a disk drive that has both a fixed and removable cartridge. I am guessing that the platter was 14" in diameter and held maybe 2MB. How was the HP being used in your situation?
