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 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?
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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 learned in 1966 because I wanted to know what those newfangled computer machines were.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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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 one of those and I rewrote the operating system in hand coded assembly and used Forth as an operating system. and networked it with my Radio Shack TRS 80 Model I, also with a rewritten operating system. That was a lot of fun! That TI chip had pretty neat CPU aechetecture!
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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1978 for me. I took up the trade because I wasn't required to talk to people that annoy me.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013I've usually been on the anoyying end of things, I usually laugh at people who annoy me, but that appears to be more annoying than ignoring them.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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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.
Alan Burkhart wrote:
The Official C64 website – The World’s Best-selling Home Computer – Reborn![^]
I'll keep that in mind the next time my home needs to do some computing.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
