First experience of programming
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I was going to mention I'm of the C64 generation, but it seems like you and I have started on the same thing. Only, on Xmas 1984, I was 12. I guess it's not a generation thing. I can't make the same claim about the book however. Being a 12-year old French boy, it took me a lot longer to go through it.
I was 12 at 1984 just like you... My book was in Hungarian (I wasn't speaking about the books originally come with the C64 - they were gone when I got the machine, but about a book my father got with the machine)...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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I was 12 at 1984 just like you... My book was in Hungarian (I wasn't speaking about the books originally come with the C64 - they were gone when I got the machine, but about a book my father got with the machine)...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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The TI 99/4A was also my first computer. I taught myself BASIC and Extended BASIC. Then I moved on to Assembler. That got me hooked on programming. I even remember the interesting quirk of the graphics abilities on that computer. Each row was divided into blocks of 8 pixels which could have only 2 colors. I still have that computer somewhere in the basement.
Kelly Herald Software Developer
It was about the time that I got the Extended BASIC cartridge that the cassette modem went out so no more saving...funny, it would load from it, just not write to it. I spent many a night playing the Scott Adams (not that guy) Adventure series games where the commands were 3 letter verb/noun combos like 'dri rum' or 'say yoh'. Fun times! :laugh: I still have mine in the original box...why I'm not even sure. :)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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So - we have done the age thing, so how about the experience thing? In 1960 I was given a Heathkit EC-1 in kit form by a rich relo. I built it, and then programmed it to solve very simply calculus problems, with the output sent to a Heathkit oscilloscope - it was an analog machine! Then there was an eight year gap until university, an IBM 1130 and Algol.
1971 university - IBM 360 Fortran IV on punch cards. I still remember the 026 and 029 card punches. Designing algorithms for the Universal Turing machine and using Facit machines to design number crunching programs. First time I got paid for a program was December 1971 as an assistant to a PhD candidate who needed some programs. Today, 48 years later, I am still earning my living writing programs. Gone through all the languages. Fortran, PL/1, Assembler, Cobol, Basic in numerous flavours, C, C#, php, CLipper with DBIV and probably a whole lot of others that I don't remeber. I am currently learning Python. It's been a wonderful journey and I wouldn't change it for anything.
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So - we have done the age thing, so how about the experience thing? In 1960 I was given a Heathkit EC-1 in kit form by a rich relo. I built it, and then programmed it to solve very simply calculus problems, with the output sent to a Heathkit oscilloscope - it was an analog machine! Then there was an eight year gap until university, an IBM 1130 and Algol.
1968, in final year of high school, I did a Fortran IV course at University of NSW (over university radio). Submitted coding sheets by mail which were punched, run and the printout returned. So one batch turn-around per week! 1969 I started uni and graduated in Computer Science after 4 years. Spent next 45 years programming.
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So - we have done the age thing, so how about the experience thing? In 1960 I was given a Heathkit EC-1 in kit form by a rich relo. I built it, and then programmed it to solve very simply calculus problems, with the output sent to a Heathkit oscilloscope - it was an analog machine! Then there was an eight year gap until university, an IBM 1130 and Algol.
DEC PDP-4e, Fortran on a console typewriter and paper tapes -- memories :-)
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So - we have done the age thing, so how about the experience thing? In 1960 I was given a Heathkit EC-1 in kit form by a rich relo. I built it, and then programmed it to solve very simply calculus problems, with the output sent to a Heathkit oscilloscope - it was an analog machine! Then there was an eight year gap until university, an IBM 1130 and Algol.
Fortran at school, cards sent to the Town Hall for processing but completely forgotten. Then at the end of the 80s a ZX81 with Basic which swiftly proved to be so limiting so I moved rapidly on to z80, 6809, 6510, 68000 and 8080 assembler (actually with z80 and 6809 it was initially pure hand written machine code). 2 games published on the Dragon and Commodore 64 together with sound and speech hardware addons.
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1975 on the 31st May I wrote my first program in City & Guilds Mnemonic Code assembly language. It was fed through a teletype on punched tape via an acoustic coupler to an ICL 1900 at Manchester University (about 50 miles away). It ran and produced the correct answer, first time! That's when I knew I had to give up my Law career and become a lumberjack computer programmer!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
Haha Amazing for those days. Just wished that lumberjack wasn't struck through. I like the idea of a lumberjack computer programmer. Has a certain ring to it. Reckon that JSOP would agree, except he doesn't like high heels on blokes.
"Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read." Frank Zappa 1980
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So - we have done the age thing, so how about the experience thing? In 1960 I was given a Heathkit EC-1 in kit form by a rich relo. I built it, and then programmed it to solve very simply calculus problems, with the output sent to a Heathkit oscilloscope - it was an analog machine! Then there was an eight year gap until university, an IBM 1130 and Algol.
must have been 1984 commodore 64 basic v2 38911 bytes free the book was in German, useless to me. first program: 10 PRINT "YOUR NAME"; 20 GOTO 10 i wanted to do something colorful with graphics. i used to peek and poke it's memory and found out the screen map at address 1024-2023 and the color ram at address 55296-56295. c64 had a terrible basic. as soon as possible i moved to machine language. i don't know what was my first program, but i'll always remember my effort to move a sprite from left to right on the screen in assembly. it took me about 10 careful rechecks and restarts of the program to realize that it is working correctly and that it is moving the sprite soooo fast that i am unable to see it. it only appeared at the final coordinate. for comparison, in basic to increase the X coordinate of a sprite in a tight loop as fast as possible would crawl the sprite from left to right. assembly language was the kind of revelation you see in 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the monkey faces the monolith.
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So - we have done the age thing, so how about the experience thing? In 1960 I was given a Heathkit EC-1 in kit form by a rich relo. I built it, and then programmed it to solve very simply calculus problems, with the output sent to a Heathkit oscilloscope - it was an analog machine! Then there was an eight year gap until university, an IBM 1130 and Algol.
1982 Apple BASIC on an Apple][ with 48k memory. Had a cassette tape recorder for storage and retrieval - no hard disk or floppies.
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So - we have done the age thing, so how about the experience thing? In 1960 I was given a Heathkit EC-1 in kit form by a rich relo. I built it, and then programmed it to solve very simply calculus problems, with the output sent to a Heathkit oscilloscope - it was an analog machine! Then there was an eight year gap until university, an IBM 1130 and Algol.
Early 80's BASIC on a Commodore VIC-20 My parent's wouldn't buy a ZX-81 as it didn't have a proper keyboard, so I wouldn't be able to learn to type on it. I still can't touch type to this day!
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So - we have done the age thing, so how about the experience thing? In 1960 I was given a Heathkit EC-1 in kit form by a rich relo. I built it, and then programmed it to solve very simply calculus problems, with the output sent to a Heathkit oscilloscope - it was an analog machine! Then there was an eight year gap until university, an IBM 1130 and Algol.
Many years ago, I bought my first computer, a Commodore VIC 20. Shortly thereafter, my dad bought a Commodore 64, but when he realised it was harder to use a computer (at that time, before Windows and Internet) than he had thought, he swapped me for my VIC 20, because he thought that I'd have a better use for the powerful Commodore 64, and he could make do with the less powerful VIC 20. :laugh:
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Oh, we used to dream of having 128K! :-D Speccy 48K for me, in the early 80s. (Once we'd been back to the store to get a box that wasn't empty, that is.) Combined with a set of Input Magazine[^]. (Ignore the publication years on that site; they were all 84-85.)
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer
1979 - 4 kB RAM. Yes, four! - R6502 1 Mhz 8-bit processor (same as Apple used in the Apple][) - 20 character alphanumeric LED display (uppercase only) I wrote a program in machine code (no assembler) to send and receive Morse-code; not for any real reason other than the challenge of processing in real time.
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I miss Heathkit. I built a variable voltage and current power supply from a kit that I used for years. 1974: My first programming experience was on a PDP/11, punchtape storage, teletype, BASIC, 64K RAM, and mag tape drive that if it drew too much current would crash the entire computer. 1977: Second was a couple HP calculators, the first being an HP-25 - Wikipedia[^] After highschool, I started programming on a Commodore PET. Onwards and upwards!
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Client-Side TypeScript without ASP.NET, Angular, etc.I miss Heathkit too. Build a lot of equipment for my HAM father. First programming experience was Fortran on an IBM 1440 in High school. I miss the punch card confetti we threw at each other! Then it was off to the Air Force and COBOL, where I learned BASIC on a friends Apple IIe, Star Trek anyone? We programed the game to go back in time if you went fast enough close to a star! Yes, we were geeks!
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It was about the time that I got the Extended BASIC cartridge that the cassette modem went out so no more saving...funny, it would load from it, just not write to it. I spent many a night playing the Scott Adams (not that guy) Adventure series games where the commands were 3 letter verb/noun combos like 'dri rum' or 'say yoh'. Fun times! :laugh: I still have mine in the original box...why I'm not even sure. :)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
That reminds me of when we would get on the teletype to MIT over the ARPANET (pre-internet) and play ZORK! I think I still have some of the output! It was written in MUDDLE, a friend analyzed it and found some cheat like "Send for mail" which would get you a brochure in the mailbox and one point! :)
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So - we have done the age thing, so how about the experience thing? In 1960 I was given a Heathkit EC-1 in kit form by a rich relo. I built it, and then programmed it to solve very simply calculus problems, with the output sent to a Heathkit oscilloscope - it was an analog machine! Then there was an eight year gap until university, an IBM 1130 and Algol.
When I was a teenager, I first had a Sinclair ZX-81, came with 1k RAM< expanded to 16k :laugh: I wrote a few simple little basic programs on that, but nothing close to any production material. It could be done, even with it's shitty graphics; I had a cassette loading version of the popular game Frogger. I upgraded to a ZX Spectrum about a year later, and also only really fooled around with it's BASIC. Typed in lots of machine code hex listings from magazines thought, for some pretty cool little games.
"'Do what thou wilt...' is to bid Stars to shine, Vines to bear grapes, Water to seek its level; man is the only being in Nature that has striven to set himself at odds with himself." —Aleister Crowley
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So - we have done the age thing, so how about the experience thing? In 1960 I was given a Heathkit EC-1 in kit form by a rich relo. I built it, and then programmed it to solve very simply calculus problems, with the output sent to a Heathkit oscilloscope - it was an analog machine! Then there was an eight year gap until university, an IBM 1130 and Algol.
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So - we have done the age thing, so how about the experience thing? In 1960 I was given a Heathkit EC-1 in kit form by a rich relo. I built it, and then programmed it to solve very simply calculus problems, with the output sent to a Heathkit oscilloscope - it was an analog machine! Then there was an eight year gap until university, an IBM 1130 and Algol.
I had Digi-comp 2, and later, 1. Digi-comp 2 was powered by falling marbles, and the gates could be preset to sort the marbles in different ways.
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So - we have done the age thing, so how about the experience thing? In 1960 I was given a Heathkit EC-1 in kit form by a rich relo. I built it, and then programmed it to solve very simply calculus problems, with the output sent to a Heathkit oscilloscope - it was an analog machine! Then there was an eight year gap until university, an IBM 1130 and Algol.
In 1975(?) I took a Saturday morning course for high school students at the local community college in FORTRAN on a Burroughs minicomputer. As I recall, I never did get a program to work. My first working programs were in Tiny BASIC on my stepdad's COSMAC ELF-II[^] single board computer, based on the RCA 1802 microprocessor. I also wrote a lot of programs for the TI-59[^] programmable calculator my parents bought me for high school graduation. My first professional programming in 1980 was on an HP 1000[^] series minicomputer in FORTRAN 66. I was a sophomore in college and was paid the whopping sum of $6.00 per hour. Not to be cliché, but - good times.
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My first experience was a programming class on AppleII probably in the early 80s (1982-ishy ?? ) I remember the class room, it was a bright room, everything smelled new. And also on Sinclair zx80 at school (but again, I don't remember much).
I'd rather be phishing!
BASIC on a GE time-sharing teletype with punched paper tape for program storage in 1966.
