It doesn't feel like 20 years
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I just realised that I've been using computers for 20 years now. I got my first computer, a ZX81 about this time in 1982. (My cousin had got one the previous Christmas) Getting hold of games and software was very difficult back then, but there were a lot of books with BASIC listings in. I typed a few of these in and then started to modify them - thus my love of programming began. So when did everybody else got their first computer and what got you started programming? Michael :-)
My first computer was an Atari 400 (you know...the one with the Chiclet style keyboard). My father bought it because he thought he could figure it out. HA HA! Yeah, right. So, he gave it to me to play with. It has 32 K of memory (a ton in those days!). It also had the tape drive and a floppy drive (which never worked). I had a few games, but I spent most of my time coding in Basic (which came on a cartridge like the games did). That was the start of my career...this was back in 1981 or so. I used this for about 3 years, then I stopped programming for a few years then started back up again in 1989. It's been nothing but fun and games ever since! :) Brigg Thorp Software Engineer Timex Corporation
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Hey, the BBC Micro had Elite, Frak, A great F1 game (for it's time) and a whole host of Arcade type games from Acornsoft including Defender and Pacman. And it had a proper keyboard. Damn, looks like the Beeb/Speccy war is still on ;P Paresh Solanki You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead - Stan Laurel
Yeah but the Speccy had the better version of Elite :-D Michael :-)
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ZX Spectrum with 64K. The games that got me thru junior school: Jetpack, Manic Miner Cheers, Simon X-5 452 rules.
simons wrote: ZX Spectrum with 64K. :omg: how did you manage to fit 64K into a Speccy? I thought they only come with 16K or 48K? maXallion
"It shouldn't have done that!" - Architect, Merlin
www.maxallion.de - coded evil & more -
Michael P Butler wrote: I was really jealous of the proper keyboard Thy jest! Proper keyboard! Ha! Did you know that the force of each keypress went stright down into the solder joints on the underlying PCB? The number of times I had to disassemble that sucker to re-solder the cracked joints to get the keys working! It would always go wrong in the middle of one of the best games we were playing. Just to blow my own trumpet: My favorite game on the D32 was "Buzzard Bait" a Joust clone. My brother and I were so good at it it was unbeleiveable! In computer mags people were saying "I got to level 32 and scored 16000", where we were getting to level 400+! Michael P Butler wrote: Of course the Speccy had the superior softwar In those days, I don;t think any of the computers had superior software. Roger Allen Sonork 100.10016 If I'm not breathing, I'm either dead or holding my breath. A fool jabbers, while a wise man listens. But is he so wise to listen to the fool?
Roger Allen wrote: In those days, I don;t think any of the computers had superior software. The Spectrum had some great games, 'The Hobbit' , 'Elite', 'Jetpac' 'Attic Atac' 'KnightLore' and the wonderful 'SabreWulf' I also spend a lot of time playing with 'The Quill' - a adventure game creator which game us such classics as "Bored of the Rings', "The Boggit" and "Robin of Sherlock' Oh the 80's such a wonderful time to be a games player Michael :-)
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simons wrote: ZX Spectrum with 64K. :omg: how did you manage to fit 64K into a Speccy? I thought they only come with 16K or 48K? maXallion
"It shouldn't have done that!" - Architect, Merlin
www.maxallion.de - coded evil & moreOver the years (especially after Amstrad bought the Sinclair Brand) there have been quiet a few varations on the Spectrum. There was also a large market for add on ram packs and the like. Michael :-)
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Michael P Butler wrote: I was really jealous of the proper keyboard Thy jest! Proper keyboard! Ha! Did you know that the force of each keypress went stright down into the solder joints on the underlying PCB? The number of times I had to disassemble that sucker to re-solder the cracked joints to get the keys working! It would always go wrong in the middle of one of the best games we were playing. Just to blow my own trumpet: My favorite game on the D32 was "Buzzard Bait" a Joust clone. My brother and I were so good at it it was unbeleiveable! In computer mags people were saying "I got to level 32 and scored 16000", where we were getting to level 400+! Michael P Butler wrote: Of course the Speccy had the superior softwar In those days, I don;t think any of the computers had superior software. Roger Allen Sonork 100.10016 If I'm not breathing, I'm either dead or holding my breath. A fool jabbers, while a wise man listens. But is he so wise to listen to the fool?
Dragon 32 fan too :-D Beam Rider was the best game so original - nothing like it since! Davy http://www.LateDecember.com
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ZX Spectrum with 64K. The games that got me thru junior school: Jetpack, Manic Miner Cheers, Simon X-5 452 rules.
Jetpac was always my favourite arcade game, did you ever play Skool Daze and Back to Skool? They were great and I really wish somebody would remake them for the PC. Michael :-)
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I just realised that I've been using computers for 20 years now. I got my first computer, a ZX81 about this time in 1982. (My cousin had got one the previous Christmas) Getting hold of games and software was very difficult back then, but there were a lot of books with BASIC listings in. I typed a few of these in and then started to modify them - thus my love of programming began. So when did everybody else got their first computer and what got you started programming? Michael :-)
Happy anniversary! :) I started programming (in Pascal) in the fall of 1980 on a VAX-1l/780. Got my first PC (IBM-AT 6MHz 80286, 512K RAM, 20Mb hard disk) in 1984 and programmed in C using the MS C 3.0 compiler. /ravi "There is always one more bug..." http://www.ravib.com ravib@ravib.com
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Roger Allen wrote: In those days, I don;t think any of the computers had superior software. The Spectrum had some great games, 'The Hobbit' , 'Elite', 'Jetpac' 'Attic Atac' 'KnightLore' and the wonderful 'SabreWulf' I also spend a lot of time playing with 'The Quill' - a adventure game creator which game us such classics as "Bored of the Rings', "The Boggit" and "Robin of Sherlock' Oh the 80's such a wonderful time to be a games player Michael :-)
Yeah! Sabre Wulf IS one of my fav's! But don't forget the DIZZY Adventures! maXallion
"It shouldn't have done that!" - Architect, Merlin
www.maxallion.de - coded evil & more -
Over the years (especially after Amstrad bought the Sinclair Brand) there have been quiet a few varations on the Spectrum. There was also a large market for add on ram packs and the like. Michael :-)
I only know of the russian version of the Spectrum (Pentagon) with 1MB+ ram any idea where I can get such a pack nowadays? I've still got 16K of spare ram, but no way of connecting it to the Speccy :( maXallion
"It shouldn't have done that!" - Architect, Merlin
www.maxallion.de - coded evil & more -
I just realised that I've been using computers for 20 years now. I got my first computer, a ZX81 about this time in 1982. (My cousin had got one the previous Christmas) Getting hold of games and software was very difficult back then, but there were a lot of books with BASIC listings in. I typed a few of these in and then started to modify them - thus my love of programming began. So when did everybody else got their first computer and what got you started programming? Michael :-)
Exactly the same time, the same machine. I was K-12 then. It was a good experience loading programs from tape seeing those beautiful gray, B&W bars on the screen. I really miss those times. Crivo Automated Credit Assessment
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I just realised that I've been using computers for 20 years now. I got my first computer, a ZX81 about this time in 1982. (My cousin had got one the previous Christmas) Getting hold of games and software was very difficult back then, but there were a lot of books with BASIC listings in. I typed a few of these in and then started to modify them - thus my love of programming began. So when did everybody else got their first computer and what got you started programming? Michael :-)
You guys are ancient ;P My first computer was a 200MHz Pentium with Windows 95. I skipped BASIC and went straight to HTML, then JavaScript, then C++. One memorable program was when I tied up a school computer for a few hours with this code and gpp:
for(unsigned int i = 0; i < 100000; i++) { cout << "\a"; }That was a quite interesting experience.:rolleyes:-Domenic Denicola- [CPUA 0x1337] Geekn MadHamster Creations
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I just realised that I've been using computers for 20 years now. I got my first computer, a ZX81 about this time in 1982. (My cousin had got one the previous Christmas) Getting hold of games and software was very difficult back then, but there were a lot of books with BASIC listings in. I typed a few of these in and then started to modify them - thus my love of programming began. So when did everybody else got their first computer and what got you started programming? Michael :-)
Me, I had a TI-99/4A for my first. Even programmed assembler on it. Got it in high school, don't remember the year. Joel Lucsy (jjlucsy@ameritech.net)
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I just realised that I've been using computers for 20 years now. I got my first computer, a ZX81 about this time in 1982. (My cousin had got one the previous Christmas) Getting hold of games and software was very difficult back then, but there were a lot of books with BASIC listings in. I typed a few of these in and then started to modify them - thus my love of programming began. So when did everybody else got their first computer and what got you started programming? Michael :-)
I built mine. TTL chips - 7404's and the like. Programming was required, since there was no software base. Nor any "languages" - all assembler. Hand-entered. Mass storage was your fingers.
Visual Studio Favorites - www.nopcode.com/visualfav
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I just realised that I've been using computers for 20 years now. I got my first computer, a ZX81 about this time in 1982. (My cousin had got one the previous Christmas) Getting hold of games and software was very difficult back then, but there were a lot of books with BASIC listings in. I typed a few of these in and then started to modify them - thus my love of programming began. So when did everybody else got their first computer and what got you started programming? Michael :-)
It sure doesn't feel like 20 years:laugh: My first, an Altair 8800 owned by the small University in LA where I ran the Systems Lab. It had an 8080 CPU, 1MHz, and 1KB of RAM. I/O consisted of 16 toggle switches and several pushbuttons. I designed an interface to a Teletype ASR33, the deluxe one with the paper tape reader/punch, and boosted the RAM to 16K (@ 100USD/K!), then wrote the bootstrap loader and monitor (now called the OS), and wrote an assembler to make the bugger somewhat easier to use. My first personal computer was the Apple IIC - cute, but useless. Once I discovered that the 6502 CPU had no far call instruction (and thus, no efficient way to leap over the video RAM mapped right in the middle of the address space), I pawned it off on my dad and did all my programming at work for a while...
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I just realised that I've been using computers for 20 years now. I got my first computer, a ZX81 about this time in 1982. (My cousin had got one the previous Christmas) Getting hold of games and software was very difficult back then, but there were a lot of books with BASIC listings in. I typed a few of these in and then started to modify them - thus my love of programming began. So when did everybody else got their first computer and what got you started programming? Michael :-)
I started in about '85 with a TI99/4a. It came with a book on BASIC that I used to make simple animations like Space Invaders aliens. I got to learn to progrm pretty well on it because it had no permanent storage, so everytime I'd write a program, I'd copy it into my notebook then reenter it the next time I wanted to run it. So I guess I've been programming for about 17 years. I never thought about it before. Pretty long time. Josh Knox that-guy.net
"Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away, and you have their shoes." - author unknown -
I started to do learn about software (10 INPUT "WHAT IS YOUR NAME",A$ 20 PRINT "Hi " + A$) about 18 years ago, with a Sharp MZ-700. It took 3 minutes to load the BASIC from a tape, but the computer had an integrated plotter ! Then, I bought myself a TI/99 4A. That was a great computer ! It looks that these two computers (especially the Sharp MZ-700) where not very popular (compared to VIC-20 and CBM 64) Jerome
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I just realised that I've been using computers for 20 years now. I got my first computer, a ZX81 about this time in 1982. (My cousin had got one the previous Christmas) Getting hold of games and software was very difficult back then, but there were a lot of books with BASIC listings in. I typed a few of these in and then started to modify them - thus my love of programming began. So when did everybody else got their first computer and what got you started programming? Michael :-)
I don't know how many of you remember the 1960's ... or have even heard of the '60s for that matter ... but in the summer between 6th and 7th grades, I took a beginning BASIC class. My older brother was friends with the math teacher who knew about computers, and the two of them were teaching the class. We had these old yellow teletype terminals with a cylindrical head that would pound away at a roll of yellow paper at the blistering rate of about 5 characters per second. "What kind of monitor did you use?" There weren't any. Those clunky yellow teletypes were it. We would have to call up the "mainframe" and put the telephone handset into the rubber cups of an acoustic coupler. Nothing like an internal modem. If we got a 300 baud connection, it was a good day. Long term storage was handled by a paper tape punch mounted to the side of the terminal. The tape was yellow, too, and about an 1.5 inches wide ... enough to punch 7 holes across a row. Those 7 holes, of course, allowed 128 possible characters ... more than enough to store any symbol needed for a BASIC program. When rolled up, the tape could be bound with a rubber band, or if really lucky, put in a special box that was about 4 inches square and just higher than the 1.5 inch tape. If you started the tape with enough "leader," you could write the program name onto it so you knew which tape was for which program. When the tape was being punched, all of the "holes" would drop into a catching container, to accumulate until some brave soul would detach it and carefully empty it into the trash. One slip and the result was quite a mess. So that's when I got hooked on programming. All sorts of imaginative possibilities were available to anyone who could dream ... and had access to the "computer room" and knew the phone number for the mainframe, and knew which end of the phone went into which rubber cup. That information wasn't distributed to just anyone. Noooooo ... you had to know what you were doing, even in the 7th grade. Then came high school, college, work, women, children, and "real life." I've loved every minute of it. Dave "You can say that again." -- Dept. of Redundancy Dept.
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I built mine. TTL chips - 7404's and the like. Programming was required, since there was no software base. Nor any "languages" - all assembler. Hand-entered. Mass storage was your fingers.
Visual Studio Favorites - www.nopcode.com/visualfav
That was fun! In school we built one with a 4-bit ALU, a 4-bit register, using LEDs and DIP switches for I/O. I liked RTN programming - very clean, logical, and close to the hardware. Just not very useful. It was a solid introduction to the concept of state machines, though, an approach that remains useful despite the trend toward tying a CPU into everything.
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I just realised that I've been using computers for 20 years now. I got my first computer, a ZX81 about this time in 1982. (My cousin had got one the previous Christmas) Getting hold of games and software was very difficult back then, but there were a lot of books with BASIC listings in. I typed a few of these in and then started to modify them - thus my love of programming began. So when did everybody else got their first computer and what got you started programming? Michael :-)
An issue of Popular Science magazine got me started back in 1976. They had an article on building a computer out of a RCA 1802 microprocessor, a whole 1k of memory. Input was 8 toggle switches and a button. Output was 2 hex digits. By 1978 I had a Digital Group Z80 based computer with 26k of memory and a real keyboard, a monitor and dual tape drives. Thus began my spiral into the computing abyss. This should be a lesson for all the kids out there. Serious adictions all start small. Brad Manske