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 :-)
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
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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.
David Chamberlain wrote: 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. Hence the term, "bit bucket." I recall in college, when the LA Fair came around, the EEE department always had a booth with an ASR33 connected to the mainframe back on campus using one of those acoustic couplers. My love was analog electronics, so I didn't get into the simple digital stuff, but I had to be there to man the booth, and watched as the CS students fought and swore at it, trying to make a reliable connection. They always did, and I admire their herculean efforts still! There was a lot more art than scince involved then; PnP has made simpletons of us all, I fear.
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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
Brad Manske wrote: 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. How much did it cost to put that little lot together back then? Michael :-)
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Brad Manske wrote: 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. How much did it cost to put that little lot together back then? Michael :-)
Michael P Butler wrote: How much did it cost to put that little lot together back then? I had about $3000 invested. Which is strangely enough about what I have spent for all of the computers I have bought since. (With the exception of my first PC compatible from Compaq. That one was about $5000) Brad Manske
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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 guess I started a bit later in this game. My first was a Tandy 1000 -- 1986 model. It had 3.5" and 5.25" double density FDDs and DOS 2.1 burnt into a ROM on the motherboard so I didn't need to use a floppy to boot. I was the man! :) It's nice to reflect back on the bleeps I could produce from the music composer in a desktop app I had, called Deskmenu. ...back in the day. Jeremy L. Falcon "The One Who Said, 'The One Who Said...'"
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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 a TI-99/4A with a full 32K memory expansion with the speech module. That was back in 1982 as well. That was my first experience with programming. I even learned Assembly with that machine. If anyone is feeling nostalgic you can always go to the Old-Computers Museum web site to see if you can find your first computer. Kelly Herald Software Developer Micronpc, LLC
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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
Domenic [CPUA 0x1337] wrote: You guys are ancient My first computer was a 200MHz Pentium with Windows 95 If we're talking about the first computer we actually owned v.s. used then I've got you beat. My first (and so far only) computer is a PII 333 running NT :) Its had a couple memory/hard drive upgrades and is now running W2K. On the subject of memorable programs, my first working, semi-useful program was a password checker written in Pascal. I didn't know much about loops or functions at the time so I copied the password check code five times to check the password a maximum of five times :laugh: Regards, Dan
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I think I got my first computer when I was 8, and that was a ZX Spectrum with 16K. And like Michael, I had books with listing which I typed and modified. but I didn't get really interested in programming until I was about 12. until then I was more interested in electronics. I can't recall why my interests shifted back then. :vegemite: 4 3vR maXallion
"It shouldn't have done that!" - Architect, Merlin
www.maxallion.de - coded evil & more -
I got my first computer in 1984: Commodore 64 with tape drive. These tape drives were really horrible. Half the time the reading head had to be adjusted to avoid load errors. X| But i got a floppy disk drive one year later!!:-D Thomas
I used to write articles for "Transactor" which was the official Commodore rag I think. The 64 was a great little machine if you knew 6502 ASM. I could make it do some pretty fancy things for the time. The old 65 series chips with its 0 based addressing instructions made for pretty easy programming. Richard If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. - Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
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Looks like Marmite :) Paresh Solanki You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead - Stan Laurel
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I used to write articles for "Transactor" which was the official Commodore rag I think. The 64 was a great little machine if you knew 6502 ASM. I could make it do some pretty fancy things for the time. The old 65 series chips with its 0 based addressing instructions made for pretty easy programming. Richard If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. - Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
Oh man. The "Transactor" was my favorite C= mag! I bought every issue I could get my hands on :) I wrote a little text editor called "NEd" (Nifty Editor) that ran in that ole $C000 bank of memory... But then I bought an Amiga... Had to throw away that WHOLE custom 6502 library i built. Oh man... Those were coooool machines... ...Steve http://hazels.freeservers.com
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My parents bought our first computer when I was born, in 1984. It was a Commodor 64 with tapes and all. We also got some books about Basic with it. I started using this computer at age 4, but only for games and such. Late on we got an XT back in '90. My brother showed me some cool things he had done with Basic on our XT, so I later on read the old books we got with the C64. It was a bit different but I've managed to fit it in the new Basic version of the XT. And that's how I started programming, I was 11 at the time I think. The cool thing was that the basic version was on the computer RAM, and whenever you started the computer without a DOS diskette (we didn't have a HD) it would activate BasicA. I almost got a funtioning C64 last year, quite a collector's item but I missed it by a week. Isaac Sasson, Small time programmer - complainer at large. Sonork ID 100.13704 CPUA Chief Treasurer [CPUA 0x0003] "I don't beleive in women selling their bodies. They should be cooking instead." -Simon Walton, February 14, 2002 at Bob's HangOut
LOAD "*",8,1 Oh man...
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LOAD "*",8,1 Oh man...
Oh the nostalgia.... I kept some of my old tapes, just for the memories. I still have the legendary Monty on the Run and Boulder Dash 1-2. Isaac Sasson, Small time programmer - complainer at large. Sonork ID 100.13704 CPUA Chief Treasurer [CPUA 0x0003] "I don't beleive in women selling their bodies. They should be cooking instead." -Simon Walton, February 14, 2002 at Bob's HangOut
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I started to do learn about software (10 INPUT "WHAT IS YOUR NAME",A$ 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
God - I remember those. My parents even joined MLM program to sell them. We had the little cassette player next to it. Phil Boyd MCP CPT, AR Sonork 100.10062 You may be gone, but we will never forget your sacrifice. "Proud to be an American..." Lee Greenwood
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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 :-)