My wife has been using her own Windows computer daily for over 10 years. For the last 5 years that is a Dell laptop running Windows 10. She surfs the web, reads newspapers online, uses Facebook. She receives and sends email. She takes photos on her phone and also on a compact camera and likes to get the images out onto a USB stick to take to the local photo-printing place. Yet, after 10 years, she still cannot use any of these and has to ask me help EVERY TIME: - Ctrl-click to add/subtract to/from selection - Shift-click to select a range. - Cut/Copy/Paste to get files from Downloads to memory stick - Cut/Copy/Paste to work with text in an email or Word document - Use ability of File Explorer to sort files by extension, name, date etc to help find desired files. - Use ability of File Explorer to search for desired files by name - Navigate an Open File or Save File picker to any folder.

That was also my first program, also in Fortran, but 18 years earlier - in 1968. It was the simple case of finding the square root. Luckily it worked first time, which encouraged me to continue.

In programming the CDC 6600 I also used to recode the innermost stuff in assembly language for speed. Time on our system was charged by the second. High priority jobs were scheduled immediately but cost 50c per second. That was in 1973 when my entry-level job paid $6000 per year, so it is more like $5 per second today. The compilers were not as good as optimizing as today's compilers so a good recode in assembly language could result in a 10x speedup, i.e. a 10x reduction in cost. In addition there was a charge for the number of I/O operations but there was also a multiplier for the field-length (the amount of main memory you were using at the time of the I/O) since the job tied up main memory due to the I/O buffers needing to be fixed during the transfer. This meant it was also very beneficial to structure a job to reduce its memory utilization to the absolute minimum during an I/O phase and expand it to the maximum during a CPU-bound phase. Again there was the possibility for 10-fold reductions in cost.

I was using WATFOR on an IBM 7040 as an undergraduate. I got paid a few dollars an hour to write programs for the Dept of Computer Science's administrative unit, for tabulating marks or something like that. That might have been in 1970. In 1971 I was in 3rd year Computer Science and during the vacations I was employed by Computer Sciences of Australia where one of my duties involved writing programs in various languages, including Fortran, that could be used as acceptance tests after upgrades to the system software on the Univac 1108. After completing my degree in 1972 I joined Control Data Australia where again Fortran was the main languages used by our clients on the CDC 6600. Throughout all of these jobs, however, I probably wrote more code in the assembly languages of the respective computers - plus others such as the English Electric KDF9, Control Data 1700, Digital Equipment PDP-8. Fortran lives on - but none of those companies are still around.

My first programs were done that way. It was 1968. The lessons used a text book plus one listened to lectures on the radio. One wrote the programs on coding sheets which one posted in. They were keypunched and run and the printout and the cards were mailed back. You tried really hard not to make coding errors with the one week turnaround. When I got to uni the following year I was amazed to find that I could punch my own cards and submit the deck and get an overnight turnaround. Later, by staying back at night, I could get the operators to run my deck while I waited and the turnaround came down to one hour. At the uni the system was an IBM 7040 and the Fortran compiler was the WATFOR compiler. There were no: screens, disk drives or networks. Only punchcards, printouts and magnetic tapes. The system, with its IBM 1401 satellite system for handling the card and paper peripherals, had 32K 36-bit words of main memory and its mass storage consisted of 6 magnetic tape drives. As I recall the tapes they used stored around 20MB.

My first program was in Fortran IV and was for an IBM 360 in 1968. Last time I used Fortran was in 1988 on a MicroVax.

Me too. The paid version. I can also say that I have used it more than once to restore an image (of C drive: 500GB and D drive: 500GB) and it worked flawlessly and its performance was excellent.

Member 14968771 wrote:

The problem with "cheap" multimeters - the test probes do not last....

Ain't that the truth. I had a multimeter that I bought in the early 1970s. Of course, from that era, it was still an analog meter with a needle. This is it (at the Radio Museum): Multimeter 200H Equipment Central; where?, build 1973 ??, 3[^] It lasted me over 40 years but it was the probes that wore out and I found I could buy a cheap new digital multimeter for less than the cost of a new set of probes. That digital meter lasted me 5 or 6 years and then those probes wore out and again it was cheaper to buy a new meter than to get a replacement set of probes.

J, K and Q are described in these Wikipedia Articles: J (programming language) - Wikipedia[^] K (programming language) - Wikipedia[^] Q (programming language from Kx Systems) - Wikipedia[^] J and K are based on APL, which I had the misfortune of studying briefly while doing Computer Science at university 50 years ago.

"It comes down to: would you trust Microsoft or foresightmobile for the future of Xamarin? I bet on Microsoft.". Microsoft may be a better bet but that doesn't mean that you might not someday still be left behind. Microsoft technologies that I used in the 90s and 00s that got dropped after we had committed years of development to them include: Visual C++ cross-compilation to Mac Visual J++ (and the Microsoft JVM) Visual Basic 6.

Fine. I understand. But since I no longer have the text of the reply to which you refer I think I shall just let it go.

Only approaching 70 here. Since I retired 4 years ago I keep dementia at bay by: a) Writing and publishing Android apps in Java using Android Studio which is based on IntelliJ. b) Learning French. I am now up to reading one French novel every week for the last year. Everything you need for both these activities is available free or quite cheaply online. One of my apps: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.globalrecordings.fivefish&hl=en_AU&gl=US[^]

I have been using it for months and never noticed that Search tab. Thanks for pointing it out.

"Maybe I should be a writer instead?" If you want to do that then start splitting your thoughts into paragraphs. Your posts in this thread are too dense to take in.

Are you sure that was the reason you were passed on? Could it be an excuse rather than to say you were too old? Anyway I am glad I never had to undergo any test of programming skill in my entire 45 year career as a programmer. When I did change jobs I was accepted due to my reputation.

I have an APC Back-UPS PRO 550. This one is 3 years old. I have had many others over the last 20+ years. Mostly from APC. I used to have hard disk drives fail before that. Never since. The main benefit is the clean power. On the occasions when there is a blackout I get a few minutes of runtime. If I am around at the time I shut the system down cleanly before the juice runs out. I agree with the other reply that said the main hassle is replacing the battery every few years.

When I started work, in 1972, the other two terms did not exist. I was a "computer programmer". That is what I put on my tax return and on the reentry card each time I returned from an overseas trip, and anywhere else that asked. So that is what I continued to call myself until finally, 2 years ago, I switched to "Retired." Other people over the years have referred to me as, and I have answered to "Software Developer", "Software Engineer" etc but never "Coder".

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.

No relation to the famous computer scientist Edsger W Dykstra?

Not the oldest, and have only posted twice before, but I do follow CP daily. Born 1951. Employed as a programmer from 1972 to 2017. Now retired but still programming as a volunteer for a Christian organization. And for those talking about fathers, my father was born in 1893 and fought in both world wars. 1914-1918 for the British Army, in Greece. 1939-1945 for the Australian Air Force, in the Middle East.